A Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and of Washington and Patrick Henry. L. Carroll Judson
Читать онлайн книгу.
To write the biography of fifty-eight individuals, all engaged in the accomplishment of a single object, although that object may be shrouded in refulgent glory—and preserve an interesting variety without being prolix or verbose, is a task no one can realize without attempting it—a task that the author does not claim the credit of having performed. To compensate for any want of diversity, the reader will find all the important facts contained in more expensive, ponderous and voluminous works, placed in so small a compass, that they may be referred to with greater facility than in them.
In the order of the names, it seems most appropriate to place the author of the Declaration of Independence first. In some instances, a character of high classic attainments has been placed by the side of one whose literary advantages were extremely limited, that the reader, when admiring the dazzling splendour of the former, may contemplate the equal patriotism and substantial usefulness of the latter. The names of Messrs. Gwinnett and Ellery, are placed by the side of each other because of the contrast in their demise.
The Appendix is considered an important affixion, and renders the work more full and complete. The Farewell Address of Washington is one of the happiest productions ever penned by mortal man. It should be read often, not only by the young, but by all—the rich and the poor—the public officer and the private citizen. It should be rehearsed in every school and declaimed in every lyceum.
The Constitution of the United States should also be better known; it should be familiar to every farmer and mechanic, that it may be better understood and more faithfully adhered to.
Finally, to carry the reader back to first principles, and point plainly and clearly to the land marks of ’76, as fixed by the signers of the declaration of our independence, and to rouse the patriot to a just sense of our blood-bought privileges and the necessity of preserving them pure and undefiled, has been the constant aim of the author.
If his humble, but honest and earnest efforts shall prove instrumental in adding one inch of time—one happy hour to our political existence, or in strengthening one single link of the golden chain of the glorious Union of these United States, he will deem the months of severe labour devoted to the preparation of this work—AS TIME WELL SPENT.
L. CARROLL JUDSON.
Philadelphia, February 22, 1839.
Declaration of Independence,
BY THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED,
July 4, MDCCLXXVI.
“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 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 inalienable rights; that amongst 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 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 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 endeavoured 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.
“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 neighbouring 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.