The Declaration of Independence: An Interpretation and an Analysis |
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¹ Journal action adopted affairs allegiance America appeal Assembly authority Britain British cause CHAPTER clause colonies colonists committee conservatives constitutional Continental Congress controversy Convention council crown Declaration of Independence Declaration of Rights delegates democracy Dickinson document Edward Rutledge elected ence endeavor enforcement England establishing favor force foreign Franklin further given governors gress grievances hand Hist Ibid idea important instructions issued Jefferson Jersey John Adams Journal of Congress July June jurisdiction King legislative legislatures liberty MacDonald Maryland Massachusetts McKean measures ment mind months nature numbers occasion onies opposition Parlia Parliament passed pendence Pennsylvania petition Philadelphia political popular Provincial Congress provisions radicals render representation resolutions respecting revolutionary Richard Henry Lee royal Samuel Adams sent signed South Carolina Stamp Act Congress Sugar Act taxation tea act Thomas McKean thought tion Townshend Acts trade troops unanimous Virginia vote York
Popular passages
Page 132 - He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.
Page 8 - Britain ; and that the King's Majesty, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons of Great Britain, in Parliament assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to have, full Power and Authority to make Laws and Statutes of sufficient Force and Validity to bind the Colonies and People of America, Subjects of the Crown of Great Britain, in all cases whatsoever.
Page 132 - Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce.
Page 267 - 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 mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
Page 163 - That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is, a right in the People to participate in their legislative council...
Page 227 - America do presume for the present, and until our further pleasure be known, to grant warrants of survey or pass patents for any lands beyond the heads or sources of any of the rivers which fall into the Atlantic Ocean from the west or northwest...
Page 131 - ... and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity, [and when occasions have been given them, by the regular course of their laws, of removing from their councils the disturbers of our harmony, they have, by their free election, reestablished them in power. At this very time, too, they...
Page 163 - British parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity subject only to the negative of their sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed...
Page 130 - The pusillanimous idea that we had friends in England worth keeping terms with, still haunted the minds of many. For this reason, those passages which conveyed censures on the people of England were struck out, lest they should give them offence.
Page 92 - That it be recommended to the respective assemblies and conventions of the united colonies, where no government sufficient to the exigencies of their affairs has been hitherto established to adopt such government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general.