Plan B Forum

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

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 unalienable Rights, that among 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 shewn, 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 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 harrass 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.
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.

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.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of 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.

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 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 that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. 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.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton


Link to images here: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charte ... oom_2.html

Please note: Rights come from God (putting it another way, Rights precede government); people form governments to protect these rights.

Rights do not come from the Government.

Corollary: There can be no right to the benefit of someone else's labor - which is to say, there can be no "right" to government-provided healthcare. There is no right to a government-provided education. Or to welfare payments, or food stamps, or housing subsidies. Or even police protection.

These things can be taken away completely, with no violation of rights. Problems arise when they are awarded and removed arbitrarily, based on offensive criteria.

Corollary: There can be no right to the benefit of someone else's labor

Does this mean we have to do away with the military or federal & state government jobs?

All supported by tax dollars...

dgs49 wrote:Please note: Rights come from God (putting it another way, Rights precede government); people form governments to protect these rights.

Rights do not come from the Government.

Corollary: There can be no right to the benefit of someone else's labor - which is to say, there can be no "right" to government-provided healthcare. There is no right to a government-provided education. Or to welfare payments, or food stamps, or housing subsidies. Or even police protection.

These things can be taken away completely, with no violation of rights. Problems arise when they are awarded and removed arbitrarily, based on offensive criteria.

And in a stroke he throws away the "strict constructionist" doctrine. And contradicts Christian dogma along the way. Call Scalia, a sheep is straying from the flock.


"Corollary: There can be no right to the benefit of someone else's labor." Except when that person is a slave or a servant or not Jewish, per holy writ.



yrs,
rubato

dgs49 wrote:Please note: Rights come from God ... " .

Historically, or course, you have only had the ability to practically exercise your rights after the godless humanist liberals reformed the structure of society during the past 200 years.

The "God" which "gave you" your rights permitted their destruction by autocrats of many persuasions, including Christian, for 2000 years.

yrs,
rubato

Rights come from the "Creator," and the Creator is "Nature's God". That is a Deist formulation, not a Christian one.

Ah dgs49, is there any topic you can't derail with your insanity?

And your corollary would make the government impossible to actually run since it requires that people benefit from the work of others.

We were all born with certain unalienable rights. Nobody gave them to us. If you believe in a Creator, it is logical that you would believe that he, she or it is the one who created you and therefore created those rights that you possess.

Governments or individuals can attempt to restrict your rights but they can't take them away.

It's a simple concept.

Thing is the guy that wrote that stuff had slaves...

Only because he couldn't free them ....

keld feldspar wrote:Thing is the guy that wrote that stuff had slaves...

"That guy" also wrote that all men are created equal.

Thomas Jefferson and his co-authors didn't include women and obviously didn't consider slaves to be 'equal' to men.

The authors of the Declaration were more interested in rejecting British rule than they actually were in the concept of 'unalienable rights' in regards to our own women, black people and other minorities.

That is historical retroimposition. Of course, by our standards, they left a lot to be desired, especially with respect to women and non-white people.

But our standards about equality for women and non-white people are built on the foundation that they laid for us. When they were doing what they did, equality among white men was a radical concept.

We can, if we want, take the modern standards that we have built on the foundation that they laid for us and say "Well, what was wrong with them?" If we want.

Or we can look back at them and say "Damn! They stood up against the norms of the Western World. When hereditary monarchies were the norm, and the birthright of the idle rich to an endless supply of aristocratic wealth bled from the labor of the poor was taken for granted, and rising by industriousness from poverty even to moderate affluence was at best very unlikely, they stood up and said 'No.'

"Yeah, they didn't go as far as we can wish that they had. (They didn't go that far even with respect to white men.) But they did something. And it was not a small something. They stood up to hereditary monarchy and aristocratic power, and they shook their fists at it, and they said 'No.'

"And they said 'No' to the most powerful nation the world had ever seen. And they fought for that foundation of modern liberty. And they bled for it. And many of them died for it."

To me, the latter view more accurately reflects their astonishing accomplishment.

"And they fought for it. And they bled for it. And they died for it."

To me, the latter view more accurately reflects their astonishing accomplishment.

I do not disagree, I was only posting a simple observation.

Actual I think Jefferson had fairly progressive views when it comes to slavery.

I've kinda glanced at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/jefferson/ch14.html and it appears that way to me.

However his writing style is kinda hard for me to understand...

ETA:

To emancipate all slaves born after passing the act. The bill reported by the revisors does not itself contain this proposition; but an amendment containing it was prepared, to be offered to the legislature whenever the bill should be taken up, and further directing, that they should continue with their parents to a certain age, then be brought up, at the public expence, to tillage, arts or sciences, according to their geniusses, till the females should be eighteen, and the males twenty-one years of age, when they should be colonized to such place as the circumstances of the time should render most proper, sending them out with arms, implements of houshold and of the handicraft arts, feeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, &c. to declare them a free and independant people, and extend to them our alliance and protection, till they shall have acquired strength; and to send vessels at the same time to other parts of the world for an equal number of white inhabitants; to induce whom to migrate hither, proper encouragements were to be proposed.

It seems to me that he was saying that:

(1) Children born to slaves would not be born slaves.

(2) During their youth, they would be stuck in their parents' circumstances.

(3) At "a certain age" -- my best guess is roughly the onset of puberty -- they would be trained, at public expense, in agriculture or manufacturing or whatever their individual aptitudes disposed them towards.

(4) At adulthood (eighteen for women; twenty-one for men), they would be expatriated to somewhere in Africa.

(5) They would be given supplies (" arms, implements of houshold and of the handicraft arts, feeds, pairs of the useful domestic animals, &c.").

(6) The entities (nations?) established by that expatriation would be the allies of Virginia, entitled to Virginia's protection until they had sufficiently established themselves no longer to need Virginia's protection.

(7) Virginia would go around getting white people to come to America as free laborers to do the jobs that those children of slaves would have been doing if they were still there.

My point was that even if Jefferson had "freed" his slaves, they would not have been free. They would no longer have been his slaves, but they still would have been slaves.

Jefferson was in debt. He was chronically in debt.

Had he signed the papers to free ("manumit") his slaves, they would immediately have become the property of his creditors. They would not have been free; they would simply have been other peoples' slaves.

Odds were that they would have been worse off. His creditors would have had to divide his "freed" slaves among themselves, so families would probably have been broken up.

Most of his creditors would have had no interest in actually owning the slaves. They would have wanted just to sell them to the highest bidder. So many of the slaves would have ended up in circumstances far worse than what they had experienced when owned by Jefferson.

Yes, slavery was an inherently cruel institution. But some slaveowners were more cruel than others. And by all accounts, Jefferson was a lot less cruel than many of his contemporaries.

So when we observe, quite correctly, that Jefferson was up to his eyeballs in the immorality of slavery, we should also ask ourselves: "Would consigning his slaves to even worse lives than they were already living have been the morally right thing to do?"

The largest ethnic group of signatories (16 in all) on the original draft of the American Declaration of Independence were Welsh. Thomas Jeffersons' family who came from Snowdonia spoke Welsh too.

George Clymer, Stephen Hopkins, Robert Morris, William Floyd, Francis Hopkinson, John Morton, Britton Gwinnett, Thomas Jefferson, John Penn, George Read, John Hewes, Francis Lewis, James Smith, Williams Hooper, Lewis Morris, and William Williams. Good Welsh names all.

I guess only those intelligent enough to use vowels left...

Jefferson was a bit of a paradox on many things slavery and indebtedness are just a couple...

Gob wrote:The largest ethnic group of signatories (16 in all) on the original draft of the American Declaration of Independence were Welsh.

And there's the rub.