--- In TheLongBranchCantina@yahoogroups.com, "Lucifer"
<rodlucifer@y...> wrote:
For transporting us beyond Seas, to be tried for pretended
offences;
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring
Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging
its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit
instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these
Colonies;
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws,
and altering fundamentally the Forms of our
Governments;
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves
invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases
whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his
Protection, and waging War against
us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burned our towns and
destroyed the lives of our
people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries
to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun
with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralled in the
most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized
nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high
Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners
of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their
Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has
endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless
Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished
destruction of all ages, sexes, and
conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress
in the most humble terms. Our repeated Petitions have been answered
only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by
every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a
free
people.
Nor have We been wanting in our attention to our British brethren.
We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their
legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have
reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement
here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and
we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow
these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections
and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice
and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity,
which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of
mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace
Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America,
in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by
the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish
and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be
Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all
Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection
between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be
totally dissolved, and that as Free and Independent States, they have
full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish
Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent
States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with
a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually
pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred
Honor.


The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of
America
The Declaration of
Independence
Thomas Jefferson
--- End forwarded message ---