These are the list of reasons the men who decided that the 13 colonies shall become states, separated from the self-acclaimed ‘Decider’ who ruled by fiat, spying on his own people, planting enmity between groups in America, who would unleash wars on several nations all at the same time… all from 3,950 miles and an entire ocean away from America.
It is true, this cogent and most poignant line, egregiously did not include people who were slaves which included Africans and peoples of the Caribean and Mexico, nor those who were Native American, nor those who were Mexicans, Asians, Jews, Catholics, or any heritages other than Caucasian, and sometimes disincluded Caucasians who were suspected to be of mixed blood or were poor; women were excluded also: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
To my mind, as a Latina belonging to five of the 1776 ‘not yet included groups,’ given the history of the United States since this Declaration of Independence was written and signed, it is astonishing that anyone, anywhere, of that time, that zeitgeist, had clarity of mind and vision to lay a basis of what was so very much right, even though it would take 200 years and then another 200 years more from this day in 2007 forward, to live up to We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. From your lips you writers of the Declaration 231 years ago, from your lips to God’s ear…. in our lifetime. Next week would not be too soon.
The ‘he’ referred to in our Declaration of Independence is ‘the mind of George III’ who went insane, literally, and episodically, throughout his adult life, and who opened up a war with America that he pledged would be ‘eternal,’ while forcing more and more ‘tribute’ from Britain’s subjects, and opening a war with France and Spain also, keeping the gyre whirling.
The George of that time and the George of our time, seem in some ways, interchangeable, both liked to play militaristic dress-up…which is an ancient fashion that Kings affected, themselves rarely having ever ridden into battle. This fashion of the ancient kings, has sometimes, strangely, been taken up by modern humans, who are most definitely not kings… but the psyche can turn into a complex and odd tangle when self-imposed limits of reason and decency with equanimity, are not set around it.
Excerpted from, The Declaration of Independence 1776
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 invasions 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 migration 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 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:
14.For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
15.For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:
16.For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
17.For imposing taxes on us without our consent:
18.For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:
19.For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:
20.For abolishing the free system of English laws 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:
21.For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:
22.For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
23.He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
24.He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
25.He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circ*mstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.
26.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.
27.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 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.
h/t Shaun Mullen
