The
Declaration
Deborah Venable
07/09/08
I
know there are not many readers of this website who have actually read my book,
“Professional Parenting – Raising the Hope For America’s Future” because I have
not done an adequate job of marketing, so I decided to share a portion of one
chapter of that book here during another Independence Day celebration. There are those saying that Americans have
nothing to celebrate on this Fourth of July, and that we should just be quiet
and feel shame for what our country has become.
Balderdash!
We
have much to be proud of and to continue to fight for! God Bless all who continue to celebrate this
Independence Day!
Excerpt from Professional Parenting – Raising the Hope For America’s Future, Chapter 15, “Education and History”:
From the beginning of America
The following contains excerpts from, “The Annals
of America, Volume 2”, published by Encyclopedia Britannica. From all other research, this seems to be a
true and accurate accounting of the steps taken to prepare and adopt the Declaration of Independence:
On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, representing
the Virginia delegates to the Continental Congress, moved that, “these
united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent States, 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.” John Adams of
Massachusetts seconded this motion, but action on it was deferred until July 1,
and the resolution was passed on the following day. Meanwhile a committee, (appointed June 11), composed of the
delegates Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and
Robert R. Livingston were preparing a declaration in line with Lee’s
resolution.
Jefferson prepared the draft, using “neither
book nor pamphlet,” he would say later.
Adams and Franklin made a number of minor changes in Jefferson’s draft
before it was submitted to Congress. On
July 4, Congress made a number of additional small alterations, deleted several
sections, (including one condemning black slavery), incorporated Lee’s
resolution, and issued the completed work as the Declaration of Independence.
(It is interesting to note here, that on the issue of slavery, the
omission of the condemnation appeased Northern colonies as well as the Southern
ones. For, although few of the
Northerners owned slaves themselves, they were by far the greatest suppliers of
slaves to the Southern colonies.)
The conscience of these men, however, was duly noted and survived the
journals of time, evolving to the eventual condemnation of the wrong they knew
to exist in the practice of slavery.
The document was adopted by unanimous vote of 12
delegates representing all colonies except New York because they were not
authorized at the time to do so. The
New York Provincial Congress quickly voted to endorse the Declaration on July
9. The document was engrossed on
parchment in accordance with a resolution passed by Congress on July 19. On August 2, the 53 members present signed
it. The three absentees signed it
subsequently.
Debates leading up to the creation and acceptance
of the Declaration were long and hard fought.
The dissidents to freedom held their positions mainly because they
thought that America was already free in many ways. Most had not encountered direct attacks from the enemy, as had
their passionate counterparts. Many
simply thought that it wasn’t yet time for such a drastic separation from
England, although they knew it would eventually be called for. They were pessimists in predicting the
colonies’ ability to achieve their independence and maintain credibility in the
world. They preferred, instead, to
cling to the advantages of being subjects to the well-established and feared
British Crown. Independent
responsibility in their minds was subordinate to collective privilege of a
Monarchy. Mostly they believed that
such a government founded on their own independence would eventually fail
anyway.
In the words of the most prominent outspoken
dissident, John Dickinson: “Then an
ambitious citizen may arise, seize the reins of power, and annihilate liberty
forever; for such is the ordinary career of ill-balanced democracies, they fall
into anarchy, and thence under despotism.”
We must understand the gravity of these men’s
decision to declare and fight for liberty.
If polling had been available in those Colonial days, the dissidents
would have outnumbered the
proponents of freedom. It was a thing
that everyone wished for, but few thought possible. This was a time when the human spirit emerged triumphant in the
abilities and faith of heroic individuals.
The history is there for us to read and to teach
our children. Today’s schools are not
doing a good job of it. The fight for
freedom and liberty is ongoing and these men understood that. Too few of our governmental representatives
today believe it. Too few Americans are
willing to sacrifice or pay any price for freedom. We have become so complacent that we don’t even realize we are
throwing it away. Our Founding Fathers
were willing to risk fortune, safety and their lives for our eventual
freedoms. We foolishly trade that
precious commodity for the mere promise of safety.
Now, let’s look at that document once again. I have included the text from the
Declaration in this project because it is important to remember from whence we
evolved. Too many of us learned these
words grudgingly as children, recalled them reverently as adults, and have
forgotten their relevance to the human species, as it now exists on earth. The Bill of Rights of the United States
Constitution derived its source of authority from the Declaration of Independence. Did you know that it also influenced the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, adopted by the National
Assembly of France in 1789? It has
influenced various peoples of the world fighting for freedom throughout the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries. If
you’ve never read it before or even if you have, read it again, and share it
with your children. The Founding
Fathers labored in the heat of summer, with no air conditioning, under threat
of death to secure for us what we should never forget or squander - freedom:
The Declaration of Independence:
“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 compel 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 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 has shown, 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
suffering 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 meantime exposed to all the dangers
of invasion from without and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the
population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for
naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their
migration 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 harass 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 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, burnt 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
paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a
civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow
citizens, taken captive on 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
attentions 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 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.”
Fifty-six men affixed their signatures to this
great document. Each and every one of
them knew the risk attached to this act.
Most of these men stood to lose, at the very least, huge fortunes, as
well as their lives, and the lives of their families. They were men of uncommon intellect and bravery. They represented people who had unwavering
faith in them, even though many were uncomfortable with cutting the ties to
England. The common thread that led
them all to this final hour of desperation was a burning desire to leave their
progeny a legacy of freedom. Moral
integrity ruled the hearts and heads of these great men.
As many of them went on to write the rules of government into our Constitution, they never lost sight of why their actions were necessary. Freedom cannot survive in tyranny, and government by its very nature can become tyrannical. They would not ratify the Constitution without the inclusion of the Bill Of Rights.
As I’ve stated before, this Bill Of Rights was
written to limit the power of
government. These words are the
only things that stand between tyranny and freedom. One of the new “buzz” terms for the Constitution that I keep
hearing these days is that it is a “living document.” Nothing could be further from the truth. People who use this term do so to
mislead. It just sounds so good, but a
living document can grow into anything.
This document already has specific and unalterable form. The men who wrote it knew exactly what they
were doing. Amendments have been added,
and that is fine, but we must not try to amend our rights to freedom. These rights are constantly under
attack. The justifications used mostly
have to do with securing our safety, but remember that governments cannot insure
individual safety. The framers of the
Constitution knew this and carefully wrote the Bill Of Rights so that
individuals would have the power to insure their own safety against their
government and all others. Take away
individual rights and you have a tyranny.
It is as simple as that. The
framers were rebounding from recent suffering under such a tyranny. They were trying to insure that we would
never have to experience what they had.
I sincerely hope that parents reading this will
take the time to do some research on the history of this country’s
beginnings. Also take some time to read
and understand the philosophies of communism.
See if you can find any reason in the world why our country should be
tolerant of it. Then check to see what
your children are being taught in school.
End of excerpt.
This is just a part of that one chapter in the book. You may be surprised to find it contained in a book on parenting, but I came to the conclusion that it definitely belonged in this one. American children are her greatest natural resource and they are being squandered in much the same way as some of the others. If they are lucky enough to make it out of their mothers’ wombs alive, into a stable, loving family environment, through an ever-changing and hostile educational experience, and reach adulthood with their minds intact, they deserve to inherit an America that will continue to celebrate all that is great about this unique country.