REN in the Courfe of human Event eccomes necessary for one Prople to dißulve the Political Sigids which have con. neled them with another, sad to affuch among the Powers of the Earth, the feperme and equal Station to bich the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Refpect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they fould declare the Caules which impel thein the toperation.

Whold thefe Truths to be felf-evident, that all Men are created

For quartering large Bodies of armed Troops among
den which they mould commit on the Inhabitants of thele States
For protefing them, by a mock Trial from Pendhent for any Mar
For coming off our Trade with all Parts of the World
For impofing Taxes on us without our Confent

sitzring fundamentally the Forms of our Governments
For taking away
away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Lawi, and
For fufpending our own Legillatures, and declaring themselves invested
with Power io legiflere for us in all Cafes whefocvet.

For depriving us, in mang Cales, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury For tranfporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences: Ior abalhing the free fyllem of English Laws in a neighbouring Province equs, that they are endowed by their Creatos with certain unalienable effabihing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging Boundaries, f Riches, that among the's are Life, Liberty, and the Purfuit et Happender it at once an Exemple and fir lotrument for introducing the fame to fecure thefe Rights, Governments are inftituted amang abuse Rule into thefe Colonies: Best-That to Alen, deriving their ja Powers from the Cunft of the Coverned, that henever any Form of Government becomes deftructive of these Ends. in the Right of the People to alter or 15 abolish it, and to influute new Gorginment, laying its foundation on fuch Principles, and organizing Powers in Juch Feam, as to them fhall feem mall likely in eft their Salety and: Happinch Prudence, indred, wa? dulate that Gurenmes effabbed thould not be changed to light and tranfient Caules and accusdugly all Experience hath theen, that Mankind are more fe pok! to 10 buffer, while Eva are fufferable, than to right themblies by abalong the Forms to which they ate accufformed Bet when leeg Tian of Ahakes and Ufurpations, purfer invariably the teme Ohic, vinces a Druga to reduce them under abfolute Detpotifm. ■ their Right, it shot Duty, to throw of fuch Government, and to to providz Guards for their furgare Security, Such has been the pausena Sule fans of theft Colonies, and fuch is 15 now the Neceflity which trains them to alies the former Sytems of Cover The Thory

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring as one of his Protection and waging War again us.

He has plundered our Scat, ravaged on City, Terer our Town, and defroyed the Lives of our cople

Hear thi Tint, transporting Forge Armies of foreiga Méfcenaries to con

the Works of Death, Defolation and Tyranny, already begun die Cucumbianers of Cruelty and Purbly Carcely paralleled in the cut Facia cove Agre, and totally unworthy the tied of a card Non He has conrained our fellow Crizens taken Captive on the high Seas to

bear

He has refufed his Allen Laws, the most wholefoone and nece3ary for the publie Good.

precacuse in the Legiflature, a Right incibmable to them, and formid2 to Tyrance only.

He

and

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Ages, Sexes and Conditions

mot humble forms: Out repeated Pentines have been infwered or by In every Stage of these Oppreffions we have protoned for Redrefs, in the forbidden bis Cermers to pass Laws of immediate and preff- epeated Injury. A Prince, whof. Character the marked by extry Apr my kaptance, unica fepessed in their Operation 1 bis Arnt fulday deêne ● Tyrant, is unft to be th: Rukce of a fice People. in obra med, and when 15 funded, he has utterly orglected to attend have warned itsm from Time in Tine of Aumps by their leggins in I have we burn manning in Areaton in our Bath Brettes Wel extend an unwarrantable Justdia x We have reminded dites of ils bas refufe! to pass other Laws for the Accor modation of large Circumflances of our Egra and Serilement kite. We bara 45° Datrics of Prople, anders but People would relinquish the Right of Repealed to their native Juffice and Magnanimity, and we have conjund the by the Tirs of our common Kindred to do thefe Llurpations, ca has called together Legifte Bodies at Maces unafual, uncomfor-ould inevitably sectrupy mur Consitions and Corrependence. They 199 duftsur tion the Depository of their public Records, for the late have been deaf to the Voice of Juffice and of Confanguinity. We mu larguang them into Comphance with bit Mcafures. therefore, acquince in the Nereffity which denounces our Separation, and Fumach bas lavalons on the Rights of the People. dified Reprefentative Loufes repeareilly, for oppofing with holdahem, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Eremies in Wer, in Peace. Friends He has refused for a long Tieve, after foch Dufolotions, to caufe others We, therefore, the Reprefentaures of the UNITED STATES OF 10 be elected whereby the Leg-flative Powers, incapable of Anation, AMERICA, in GENERAL CONGRces affembled, appealing to the have returned to the to the people at large for their exercite, the State remain Supreme Judge of the World for the Reftitude of our Innuone, do in the Crime Expoled to all the Dangers of lavation from, with Name and by the Authority of the good People of thefe Colonies, folemnly Publib and Declare, That thefe Used Col Used Colonics are, and of Right eight ost, and Convulfions washin they are abfolved from code Connention her com noured to prevent the population of thefe States; for that Porpofe to be FAFE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, that ohlrafting the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners, erfuling to par orbers all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all pohrical Age thee Migrations hither, and railing the Conditions of them and the State of Greae Brit, is, and ought to be really dialert Appropriations of and that a Faze INDEPENDENT STATES, they have full Ponci to yw Ads and Things which IDEPENDENT STATES way of Right da levy War, conclude Prace, contract Aliances, cftablish Commerce, and to de all & T And for the Support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Pi lion of Divine Providence, we murually pledge to each other out Livch, Formats, and our facred Honor

Confiction, and vascknowledged by aɛcLawe; given his Allan to CHARLES THOMPSON, Secretary.

AMERICA Bouron, Printed by JOHN CILL and POWARS and WILLIS, in Queenscases.

BROADSIDE OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

IN CONGRESS. JULY 4. 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the united States of America,

On January 2, 1824, a letter from John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, was read in the House of Representatives, stating that a facsimile of the Declaration of Independence, as executed August 2, 1776, had been made by his direction, and two hundred copies struck off.

A joint resolution was afterward passed providing for their distribution to various public institutions and to each of the surviving signers of the original document. These were Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. The engraver was William I. Stone, of Washington.

The ink of the August 2, 1776, parchment copy of the Declaration of Independence showing signs of fading, in February, 1894, it was taken from the frame where it had hung many years in the State Department, Washington, placed between sheets of glass and sealed in hermetically, to be kept in a narrow drawer which slides in a steel vault, under heavy double doors locked by a combination, within a cabinet of the State Department.

The original "copy" as to text and signatures has almost faded away (1903), practically no more than a large sheet of parchment. Part of the large words "Declaration of Independence" are decipherable, but not a signature visible to the naked eye.

Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration, with insertions in the handwriting of Franklin and John Adams, is still exposed to public view; the ink has not faded.

The bell in the steeple of the State House, that rang out the announcement of the adoption of the "Declaration," by a peculiar coincidence bore the inscription, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."

The Declaration was the composition of Thomas Jefferson, being written at his lodging house (Mrs. Clymer's), S. W. corner of Seventh and High streets, Philadelphia.

A Supplemental Declaration. In the year 1826, after all save one of the band of patriots whose signatures are borne on the Declaration of Independence had descended to the tomb, and the venerable Carroll alone remained among the living, the government of the city of New York deputed a committee to wait on the illustrious survivor and obtain from him, for deposit in the public hall of the city, a copy of the Declaration of 1776, graced and authenticated anew with his sign manual. The

aged patriot yielded to the request, and affixed with his own hand, to a copy of that instrument, the grateful, solemn, and pious supplemental declaration which follows:

"Grateful to Almighty God for the blessings which through Jesus Christ our Lord, he has conferred on my beloved country in her emancipation, and on myself in permitting me, under circumstances of mercy to live to the age of eighty-nine years, and to survive the fiftieth year of American Independence, and certify by my present signature my approbation of the Declaration of Independence adopted by Congress on the Fourth of July, 1776, which I originally subscribed on the second day of August of the same year, and of which I am now the last surviving signer; I do hereby recommend to the present and future generations the principles of that important document as the best earthly inheritance their ancestors could bequeath to them and pray that the civil and religious liberties they have secured to my country may be perpetuated to remotest posterity and extended to the whole family of man. CHARLES CARROLL of Carrollton.

August 2, 1826.

ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION.

June 11, 1776. Committee appointed "to prepare and properly digest a form of confederation to be entered into by the several States."

Committee: John Dickenson, Chairman; Josiah Bartlett, Samuel Adams, Roger Sherman, R. R. Livingston, Thos. McKean, Thos. Stone, Thos. Nelson, Jr., E. Rutledge, Button Gwinnett (one delegate from each State).

July 12, 1776. Presentation of a draft of Articles of Confederation in the handwriting of Dickenson, based on Franklin's plan of confederation, as proposed to Congress, August 21, 1775.

August 20, 1776. Report laid aside.

April 8, 1777. "Articles" taken up for reconsideration. Meanwhile several States had adopted constitutions for their respective government, and Congress acknowledged as the practical supreme head in all matters appertaining to war, public finances, etc., it having emitted bills of credit, or paper money, appointed foreign ministers, and opened negotiations with foreign governments.

November 15, 1777.

The "Articles of Confederation," as hereinafter noted, laid before Congress and adopted.

A copy to be sent to the speakers of the various State Legislatures to be laid before them for their action; accompanied by a communication in case of approval to instruct the delegates to vote for a ratification, which act should be final and conclusive.

Action of States was slow, the Articles not seeming to accord with the sentiments of the people, as they were manifestly at variance with the Declaration of Independence; the latter based upon declared right, while the Articles were founded on asserted power. System of representation objectionable, because whatever the difference in population each State entitled to the same voice in Congress; also the limits of the several States, and the unadjusted control or possession of the crown lands.

June 22, 1778. Objection of the States to the Articles considered by Congress.

June 26, 1778. Form of ratification adopted, to be signed by such delegates as so instructed by their legislatures.

July 9, 1778. Delegates of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina signed. The action of New York conditioned that all the other States should ratify.

July 21, 1778. Delegates of North Carolina signed.

July 24, 1778. Delegates of Georgia signed.

November 26, 1778. Delegates of New Jersey signed.

May 5, 1779. Delegates of Delaware signed.

March 1, 1781. Delegates of Maryland signed.

Maryland was slow to ratify, owing to the conflicting claims of the Union and of the separate States to the crown land, the claim of the States to the unsettled and unappropriated lands finally being ceded to the benefit of the whole Union, Maryland empowered her delegates to sign. Maryland's claim to the full meaning of a Confederation originated the Territorial System, resulting in a distinct government for the "Northwestern Terri- tory," with a local Legislature of its own. (See Cessions of Western Land," in Index.)

Four years and four months after the Articles were adopted by Congress, they became the organic law of the Union.

March 2, 1781. Congress assembled under the new powers of "The Articles of Confederation."