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: 25. For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the powers of our governments: 26. For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 27. He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. 28. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 29. 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. 30. 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. 31. 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. 32. 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. 33. 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. 34. 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 consanguinity. 35. 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. 36. 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 firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. What avails the show of external liberty, to one who has lost the government of himself? CII. THE FIRST DECLARATION OF INDE PENDENCE. 1. Many readers probably are aware that a claim has been set up, on the part of North Carolina, to the honor of having issued the first Declaration of Independence, more than a year prior to the appearance of the famous instrument drawn up by Jefferson, and adopted on the 4th of July, 1776. 2. This first declaration, it has been said, was issued by a meeting in Mecklenburgh county, North Carolina, in May, 1775. It was first made notorious in 1819, or thereabout, when the Raleigh "Register" produced what was alleged to be a copy of it. 3. This, however, Mr. Jefferson strenuously declared to be spurious; and the authenticity of the paper had not been generally admitted. But it is now proved to be authentic; the researches of Mr. Bancroft, in the State Paper Office of the British Government having thrown new light on this interesting subject. 4. He has discovered a copy of the resolves of the committee of Mecklenburgh sent over to England by Sir James Wright, then governor of Georgia, which show that independence was first proclaimed in North Carolina in May, 1775. 5. The letter of Sir James Wright, referred to by Mr. Bancroft, closes as follows: "By the enclosed paper your Lordship will see the extraordinary resolves of the people of Charlotte town, in Mecklenburgh county; and I should not be surprised if the same should be done every where else." The prediction was soon verified. He who is a stranger to industry may possess, but he can not enjoy; for it is labor which gives relish to pleasure. CIII. THE AMERICAN FLAG. 1. When freedom from her mountain height 2. Majestic monarch of the cloud! Who rear'st aloft thy regal form, When strive the warriors of the storm, 3. Flag of the brave, thy folds shall fly, Each soldier's eye shall brightly turn Like shoots of flame on midnight's pall; 4. Flag of the seas! on ocean wave Thy stars shall glitter o'er the brave; 5. Flag of the free heart's hope and home, Where breathes the foe but falls before us, And Freedom's banner streaming o'er us! JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE. Generous ambition and sensibility to praise are, especially in youth, among the marks of virtue. |