Editor’s note: this post was originally published in 2020, but it remains relevant every year, so we’re republishing it!
WILLITS, 7/4/20 — Two-hundred and forty-four years ago today, in Philadelphia, the Declaration of Independence was signed and sent to the printers for publication, and so we are reproducing here in its entirety. If you have never read it, it’s well worth a few minutes and is a fairly short document, at only about 1330 words.
By July of 1776 fighting had been ongoing for more than a year, since at least the Battle of Lexington and Concord, in April of 1775, and no legal act of separation had been made. Demands had been made of the king and of parliament, but as the fighting continued support for formal independence increased.
A committee of the Continental Congress including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin began drafting the document in mid-June, with Jefferson doing most of the writing with comments and notes from the others. This initial draft produced by Jefferson was substantially longer (you can read it here). However, the actual vote for separation with Great Britain was taken on July 2, and future president John Adams writing to his wife Abigail, that July 2 would be, “celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary Festival.”
Two days later, after substantial revisions to the document by the congress it was ready to be voted on. On that July 4 the Declaration itself was ratified and sent to the printer.
The Declaration can be split into a few sections: a brief introduction explaining what it is; a preamble providing philosophical and moral justifications for government and independence; the longest section, a point by point indictment of King George III detailing the perceived wrongs against the colonies; a denunciation of the larger political situation; and a conclusion making the formal declaration of separation and independence.
So to everyone out there, here’s the Declaration of Independence. And we hope you have a happy and safe Independence Day, however you choose to celebrate it:
In Congress, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring 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, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled 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 endeavoured 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 attentions to our Brittish 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 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.
Yes, indeed, please READ this…and, if necessary, read it AGAIN, until you UNDERSTAND it.
Its words were aimed at someone like Gavin Newsom.
I note, with emphasis: “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
Right now, the rule by decree of Newsom and his underlings is Ultra Vires…NOT “from the consent of the governed.”
Ron Paul telling it like it is at ronpaullibertyreport.com: “Independence Day Under Dictatorship.” Dr. Paul makes the comment that if the grievances were to be published in a newspaper today they would sound like what is happening in this country right now.
I offer a thought from the writings of Thomas Jefferson, who would be astounded at what the citizens of this declining nation are allowing government to dictate and control:
“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls who live under tyranny.”
Jefferson was a great advocate of physical exercise as well. Now we are being told not to participate in sports, to wear a mask while engaged in physical activity, to refrain from singing in public, to avoid going out into the sunshine and fresh air, and to generally live cowering in fear. How ironic that we are supposedly celebrating Independence Day, but parades, fireworks displays, rodeos and community barbecues are all cancelled at the behest of a “health” officer rubber stamping the illegitimate orders of a governor who in turn is basing his unconstitutional diktat on the scientifically unfounded and ever mutating proclamations of a federal alphabet agency.
It’s all a game for America’s enemies. They’re playing with us, to see how much we will “take.” So far, I’m discouraged by how much Americans are NOT actively resisting. If this very same situation existed in 1776, with “orders” for we lesser folk to “obey,” the Founders would have advocated exactly what they advocated for the lesser tyranny of their day. No, not protests, and definitely not compliance. George Washington didn’t suggest we “vote” our way out of tyranny. Everyone knows what he recommended. He spoke in the language tyrants understand.
The American people may just be much more patient than I thought they were, and one trigger event is soon coming where refusing to wear masks will be the least of the “authorities'” worries from patriotic Americans.
Not surprisingly, domestic enemy of America Kaepernick said today, Independence Day, is a “celebration of ‘white supremacy’.”
I’ve been telling people for some time that when these Bolsheviks – who fraudulently claim they are “Democrats” – shriek and froth at the mouth about “white supremacy,” they are actually speaking against European civilization, including all the values that make possible their very existence. For it was not Africa which created the ideals that finally ended slavery and so many other barbarous practices – it was the hated White Man’s culture. It took Africa until 1981 (Nineteen Eighty-one, yeah, just 39 years ago) to ban legally-sanctioned slavery (Mauritania). Not that slavery doesn’t still exist in Africa.
No, traitor, we are not going to give up or flush our culture and ideals down the Memory Hole of your Bolshevism. Always most amusing for someone who has become a “celebrity” with a pile of money to preach against a “white supremacist” system that made him, well, a rich Black “celebrity.” If you don’t like America, then you are free to leave for a land where your ideas – can’t call them ideals – better suit you. Red China, North Korea, or one of the Marxist regimes in Africa might work for you.
Again: when these devils say “white supremacy,” they don’t refer to race hatred – they refer to YOUR CULTURE, your heritage. YOU are their enemy. Act accordingly.