Britain expended near a hundred millions of moncy, with a hundred thousand lives, and won nothing. America endured every cruelty and distress from her enemies-lost many lives and much treasure-but delivered herself from a foreign do minion, and gained a rank among the nations of the earth. QUESTIONS. When was the declaration of Independence published? What tended to raise the desponding hopes of America in the latter par of 1776 ? What splendid advantages did the Americans gain in 1777? When was a treaty of alliance formed between the French and Americans? Who took the command of the English army on the return of Gen. Howe? Why was Gen. Lee suspended? What took place on the 15th July, 1779? Where and under what circumstances was Count Polaski mortally wounded? What prevented West Point from falling into the possession of the English? What distinguished French military and naval commanders were sent to the aid of America? What event is reckoned to have decided the contest between England and America? How much money did England expend, and how many lives did she sacrifice in the war? CHAPTER II DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, By the representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, July 4, 1778. 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 for 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 when 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 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 sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former system 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 danger of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturaliza tion 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 offices, and sent here 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 jurisdicron, 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 murder they should commit on the inhabitants of these states: For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses: For abolishing the free system of English law 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 in these colonies: For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our govern ments: 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 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 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 attention to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts made 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 connexions and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and 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 connexion 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. Signed by order and in behalf of the Congress, JOHN HANCOCK, President. Attest, CHARLES THOMPSON, Secretary. New Hampshire-Josiah Bartlett William Whipple, Ma thew Thornton. Massachusetts Bay-Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry. Rhode Island, &c.—Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery. Connecticut Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, Wiliam Williams, Oliver Wolcott. New York-William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris. New Jersey-Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark. Pennsylvania-Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Wilson, George Ross. Delaware-Cæsar Rodney, Thomas M'Kean, George Read. Maryland-Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll. Virginia-George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jun. Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton. North Carolina-William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn. South Carolina-Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jun. Thomas Lynch, Jun. Arthur Middleton. Georgia-Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton. CHAPTER III. CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. WE, THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this CONSTITUTION for the United States of America. ARTICLE I. Sec. 1. All legislative powers herein granted, shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. Sec. 2. The house of representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year, by the people of the several states; and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature. |