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 British 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.
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, 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 York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
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
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
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
eemom
Frederick Douglass on the 4th of July
Adam L Silverman
@eemom: That is my next scheduled post paired with the abolitionist version of My Country Tis of Thee.
Duane
I can’t miss how they felt they should be free but not people of color.
dm
Signing for Massachusetts: Elbridge Gerry, later immortalized by the Gerrymander.
SiubhanDuinne
Some call her “Pocahontas.”
Adam L Silverman
@SiubhanDuinne: That bit is a wee bit out of time.
SiubhanDuinne
@dm:
This makes me happy:
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: To be fair, the British/American rule of war against them “was an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Adam L Silverman:
Perhaps I should have been more lavish with the quotation marks.
debbie
@Duane:
According to Cokie Roberts:
(Can’t do multiple links on this iPad, but this is from NPR this morning.)
debbie
@debbie:
Cant edit either. The NPR program is Morning Edition.
lamh36
Yarrow
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne: Never skimp on quotation marks, they’re super cheep.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Here you go:
SiubhanDuinne
I don’t care who you are, these words bring chills every time.
SiubhanDuinne
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
“I ‘KNOW,’ right?”
Jager
@SiubhanDuinne:
a non-starter for republicans today, it would be struck in committee
Mnemosyne
In case anyne has not yet set their DVR, Turner Classic Movies is airing 1776 at 10:15 pm EDT / 7:15 pm PDT. Still the best musical ever written about the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Fun fact: the fountain in the courtyard where Richard Lee is persuaded to ride home to gather more support is the same one that was later used for the opening credits of “Friends.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
And the award for tallest little person goes to….
lamh36
Happy 4th people.
So when I finally went to bring Maddie her bag from Australia, she was at my mama house and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 was on, well going off…and mama was like what is this? Is that a walking raccoon????
and now i want to watch GoG with my mama just so I can LMBAO at her questions
SiubhanDuinne
@Jager:
fuckem (h/t efg)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus:
ME!
hueyplong
@Duane: Back at the time, Samuel Johnson was all over your point when he said that “the loudest yelps for liberty” came from the drivers of slaves.
eemom
@Mnemosyne:
Not the only one?
I like it too, except the John/Abigail scenes/songs. Too soppy. Prefer the raw sex of “He Plays the Violin”.
Mnemosyne
@lamh36:
I love both of the GotG movies, and not only because Chris Pratt takes his shirt off in both of them.
But it doesn’t hurt that he does.
stinger
Thanks, Adam. This has been a great read all day.
oatler.
@Mnemosyne: “Good Lord, we’re free already and he hasn’t even left yet!”
“You’re obnoxious and disliked.”
“Confound it, why must New York always abstain??”
Mnemosyne
@oatler.:
“Not everyone is from Boston, John.”
lamh36
@Mnemosyne: Oh…I do too, but it was LOL how incredulous my mom was “damn walking raccoon”…LOL
I’m LOL thinking bout what she would have thought of Groot….LOL
eemom
@Mnemosyne:
“The history books will clean it up.”
Jager
I sent the Jackie Venson video from a previous thread to my niece Laura in Austin asking if she’d ever seen her play.
Laura replied “Yes, yes, yes, she is incredible”.
kattails
Oath of allegiance of the Aragonese to their Monarch: “We, who are as good as you, swear to you, who are not better than us, to accept you as our King and sovereign, provided you observe all our liberties and laws, but if not, not.”
This quote has popped into my head several times over the last eternity–uh–year and a half. Seems like a good a time as any to toss it out there. I had done it in calligraphy years ago at the request of a friend and it’s stuck with me. Before posting, I double-checked and found it under Catalan-Aragonese Oath of Allegiance. “Barcelona was governed in the Middle Ages by an oligarchy of nobles, merchants, shopkeepers and, unusually, artisans who formed… the Council of One Hundred, in the 13th century.” The city’s charter of citizens’ rights predates the Magna Carta by a century. (Website iberianature.com, I’m lousy at links).
Mnemosyne
@eemom:
I think other people had tried to musicalize it, but obviously this was the most successful attempt. The John and Abigail parts aren’t my favorite — they stuck a little too close to the actual letters for thise sequences to be good songs.
And, of course, Benjamin Franklin gets all of the best lines, and Howard Da Silva delivers them perfectly.
Duane
@hueyplong: The contradiction is blinding. Obama becoming President was an eye opener too. The disrespect shown him still makes me mad.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: Reading the whole thing gives me chills. These guys were really putting their necks on the line. It’s so easy, when you learn about the American Revolution in school, to be led to think of the colonists’ victory as somehow inevitable – but it really wasn’t. It was very, very evitable indeed.
Miss Bianca
@Duane: Adam can speak better to this point, I know, but the English – and that is how the colonists thought of themselves – made a point of a distinction between ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’. Somehow, the concept of ‘liberties’ applied only to…white property-owning English men, go figure. They were all mad because they felt that King Geoge was infringing on their ‘liberties’, treating them not like English gentlemen of liberties like himself or the gentry back home, but like a buncha damn hick colonials who could just be ordered around and made to produce just like they made their slaves and servants produce.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
“If we do not hang together, we will, most assuredly, hang separately.”
Jager
@Miss Bianca:
They lost, lost, lost, lost some more and then somehow won. I have an ancestor from Stonington Ct who was up to his ass in it. His brother split and moved to Toronto. The two sides of the family didn’t speak again until 1890 or so.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne: Prezackly
ETA: Remind me, does Franklin get to say that in “1776”?
SiubhanDuinne
@Miss Bianca:
Oh for sure, every sentence was treasonous. But there is something so fuck-you-in-your-face about “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor” that gives me goosebumps every time I hear it or read it. I understand the slave-owning hypocrisy that underlies and defines the context of the Declaration; but it is an aspirational document, and — call me naïve — I love its inspiring language. Those were brave souls, the men who declared independence.
kattails
Adam, thank you for the set of posts, I came in late and am reading backwards. It is sobering but not depressing, although there are way too many parallels with current events. It’s a reminder that my safe, peaceful life has been able to play out because enough people before me took the long view. Finishing up the set will make fine bedtime reading.
eemom
It is sort of cool how Jefferson and Adams both died on July 4, 50 years later.
Adam L Silverman
@eemom: Your post is up!
Adam L Silverman
@kattails: You’re welcome.