The Declaration of Independence – The Day After

Benjamin Franklin, one of the few Founders who signed the Declaration of Independence and participated at the Constitutional Convention said of the presiding officer’s chair after the convention:

“I have,” said he, “often and often in the course of this session and the vicissitude of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”

At the time, the framework for our second attempt at governance had just been established, after having failed miserably under the Articles of Confederation.

However, the hope for what America should be – and the rationale behind why it should throw-off the yoke of tyranny – lies not with the Constitution but with our Declaration of Independence (a document Franklin had an intimate hand in writing).

So why did colonials find it necessary to pledge their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to establish a new nation and dissolve the political bands connecting them to the British monarchy?

As you read below through this much-skipped list in the Declaration, you’ll note that our own government remains faithful to the people and the spirit of the document.

We still have free trade, an independent judiciary, a constitutional republic, a military under civil control, etc. The government is not harassing the people, burning towns, or impressing individuals into service. Our legislature is still elected, seated, and acknowledged by the executive branch. There is still trial by jury.

But, still, this list does – or should – make one think.

What if these abuses were present – or how close are these abuses to being present – today? What would we do to correct it?

It’s important to remember this list of abuses and keep an eye on our government with a healthy dose of skepticism – or at least to be mindful of its actions – so that our basic liberties will continue to be preserved.

To forget these abuses as a simple, mundane, forgettable list of a bygone yesteryear invites their return, and accelerates Franklin’s sunset.

We cannot let that happen. We must remember why we sought freedom and what kind of freedom we sought.

Remembering – or at least recalling – this section of the Declaration is as important as remembering that we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights. This list of abuses is no less than the secular basis of our liberty and justification for our freedom – and a list whose points we should be ever vigilant in seeking to avoid from ever reappearing from our own government.

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 mean time 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 benefit 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.

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

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 & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

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.

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.

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