Have You read The Declaration of Independence?

Have you ever read the Declaration of Independence?  Are you aware of the reasons why we separated from Great Britain?  Most people think the key issue was taxation without representation, which was one critical item, but there were many more than that.  In the declaration there is a list of grievances that were brought to King George’s attention that led the Americans to declaration their independence from England.  For about 11 years the Americans had been trying to reconcile with Great Britain and sent King George the Olive Branch Petition, which was quickly rejected by the King.  He had hired German mercenaries and was sending an invasion fleet to come to New England and crush the rebellion.   Many of the Americans felt that was the straw that broke the camel’s back!

It was Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, that made a motion to separate from Great Britain and it was seconded by John Adams, and thus things were set in motion that resulted in an official vote by congress to separate from England, followed by the drafting of the  Declaration of Independence, mostly done by Thomas Jefferson.  If you haven’t read this document it is a must read!  It is such a vital piece of our nations’ history.  You can Google it and read it on line.  The thing that many people don’t know is how many grievances there were that the colonists had against the mother country.  You can read the list for yourself from this excerpt of the Declaration of Independence below:

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.

#1. He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

#2. 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.

#3. 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.

#4. 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.

#5. He has dissolved representative Houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasion on the rights of the people.

#6. 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.

#7. 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 migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

#8. He has obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

#9. He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.

#10. He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

#11. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

#12. He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

#13. 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:

1. For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
2. For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States:
3. For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
4. For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
5. For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury:
6. For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
7. For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to ren-der it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
8. For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
9. For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

#14. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

#15. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

#16. 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 and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

#17. 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.

#18. 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.

In conclusion, this is a piece of history that sadly, many Americans aren’t familiar with.  On this Independence Day Holiday, I would encourage you to be thankful to the signers of the declaration, because when they signed that document they signed their death warrant.  Rebelling against the King was high treason, punishable by death.  The signers of the declaration ended by saying, “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.”

Signers of the Declaration of Independence

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

MASSACHUSETTS: John Hancock, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Robert Treat Paine

RHODE ISLAND: Elbridge Gerry, Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

CONNECTICUT: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William 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 Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

DELAWARE: Ceasar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

MARYLAND: Samuel Chase, Thomas Stone, William Paca, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

VIRGINIA: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

NORTH CAROLINA: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

SOUTH CAROLINA: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Authur Middleton

GEORGIA: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

On this celebration of our independence, let's me mindful of the sacrifice that our founders made so that we could enjoy the life we have in american today!

 God Bless America!

Dr. Bruce Guckelberg