<h2 id="c11"><span class="h2line1">Chapter XI</span> <br/><span class="h2line2">The Declaration of Independence</span></h2>
<p>As all their representations and petitions for
just treatment had been made in vain, the
Americans felt that the time had come to
declare this to the world and to explain
that they considered themselves absolved from all
their duties to England and resolved to form a
State of their own. It was a solemn moment when
the announcement was made to the people assembled
before the house of Congress in Philadelphia, on the
fourth of July, 1776, that the thirteen colonies of
America had voted for the Declaration of Independence
and the bell rang out, upon which were
engraved the words, “Liberty throughout the land
to all its inhabitants!” The pealing of this bell
awakened the neighboring bells to life, and these
still others, so that they echoed and reëchoed from
village to village, from town to town, and thus
within a short time the whole expectant country
learned that the great and momentous step had been
taken that separated it completely and irrevocably
from the mother country; a step to which English
tyranny had forced the American people.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_94">94</div>
<p>Everywhere festivities were held to celebrate this
great event. The inhabitants of Savannah organized
a funeral procession and the effigy of George the Third
was buried in front of the State House. One of the
citizens pronounced a formal funeral oration in which
he said, among other things: “The King has broken
his oath to the crown in the most shameless fashion.
He has trodden the constitution of our country and
the sacred rights of man under foot. For this we
lay his political body in the grave—the corrupt
to corruption—in the confident hope that it will
remain buried forever and ever, and never be resurrected
to reign again over these free and independent
States of America.” All freedom-loving people
in Europe were in sympathy with the struggle across
the ocean. Timid souls, to be sure, believed that
this example would raise a storm everywhere against
the monarchical form of government, although the
Americans had been an example of long-suffering
patience. Had they not striven to maintain the
monarchical form with admirable devotion? What
had they asked of the King? Only that the laws of
the land should be respected. Laws are the foundation
pillars of all government, even the monarchic.
It is certainly true that it was King George the
Third and his ministers who broke the tie which
bound the colonies to England, and that the colonies
did not declare themselves an independent nation
until all their sincere efforts for just legislation had
failed, owing to the obstinacy of the English government.
Instead of giving them bread it offered them
a stone. Tyranny answered their respectful petitions
with powder and lead, instead of a conciliatory
recognition of their rights.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_95">95</div>
<p>The Declaration of Independence is a masterpiece
in style and contents. The Americans did not
invite others to follow their example; indeed they
deprecate this, for it says: “Prudence indeed will
dictate that governments long established should
not be changed for light and transient causes”; but,
on the other hand, the intention is evident, from the
beginning of the document, of justifying their step
before the whole world, while setting forth the true
principles of government. It says, among other
things:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>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:</p>
<p>He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
foreign to our constitutions and unacknowledged
by our laws; giving his assent to their pretended acts of
legislation:</p>
<p>For imposing taxes on us without our consent;</p>
<p>For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial
by jury;</p>
<p>For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended
offences;</p>
<p>For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring
province, establishing therein an arbitrary government;</p>
<p>For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable
laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our
governments;</p>
<p>For suspending our own legislatures and declaring
themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all
cases whatsoever;</p>
<p>He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out
of his protection and waging war against us.</p>
<p>He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned
our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.</p>
<p>He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign
mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation,
and tyranny.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>He has excited domestic insurrections among 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our
British brethren. They too have been deaf to the voice
of justice and consanguinity. 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.</p>
<p>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 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.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This Declaration of Independence, as well as the
whole conduct of the Congress, won the admiration
of the most brilliant thinkers of Europe, among them
some who occupied thrones, but were watching
without prejudice the progress of affairs. We shall
mention only Frederick the Great, who, in his
“Observations on the Condition of the European
Governmental System,” had given utterance to ideas
on the aims of government which were in complete
accord with those being promulgated in the forests
of America.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_98">98</div>
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