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Wednesday,
July 4, 2007 The Declaration,
followed by Mencken's interpretation.
The Declaration of Independence
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.
----------------
Declaration of Independence in American, by H. L.
Mencken, 1921
http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/decind.html
1921
WHEN THINGS get so balled up that the people of a country got to cut loose
from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no
permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let
everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are not
trying to put nothing over on nobody.
All we got to say on this proposition is this: first, me and you is as good
as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better; second, nobody ain't got no
right to take away none of our rights; third, every man has got a right to
live, to come and go as he pleases, and to have a good time whichever way he
likes, so long as he don't interfere with nobody else. That any government
that don't give a man them rights ain't worth a damn; also, people ought to
choose the kind of government they want themselves, and nobody else ought to
have no say in the matter. That whenever any government don't do this, then
the people have got a right to give it the bum's rush and put in one that
will take care of their interests. Of course, that don't mean having a
revolution every day like them South American yellow-bellies, or every time
some jobholder goes to work and does something he ain't got no business to
do. It is better to stand a little graft, etc., than to have revolutions all
the time, like them coons, and any man that wasn't a anarchist or one of
them I.W.W.'s would say the same. But when things get so bad that a man
ain't hardly got no rights at all no more, but you might almost call him a
slave, then everybody ought to get together and throw the grafters out, and
put in new ones who won't carry on so high and steal so much, and then watch
them. This is the proposition the people of these Colonies is up against,
and they have got tired of it, and won't stand it no more. The
administration of the present King, George III, has been rotten from the
start, and when anybody kicked about it he always tried to get away with it
by strong-arm work. Here is some of the rough stuff he has pulled:
He vetoed bills in the Legislature that everybody was in favor of, and
hardly nobody was against.
He wouldn't allow no law to be passed without it was first put up to him,
and then he stuck it in his pocket and let on he forgot about it, and didn't
pay no attention to no kicks.
When people went to work and gone to him and asked him to put through a law
about this or that, he give them their choice: either they had to shut down
the Legislature and let him pass it all by himself, or they couldn't have it
at all.
He made the Legislature meet at one-horse tank-towns, so that hardly nobody
could get there and most of the leaders would stay home and let him go to
work and do things like he wanted.
He give the Legislature the air, and sent the members home every time they
stood up to him and give him a call-down or bawled him out.
When a Legislature was busted up he wouldn't allow no new one to be elected,
so that there wasn't nobody left to run things, but anybody could walk in
and do whatever they pleased.
He tried to scare people outen moving into these States, and made it so hard
for a wop or one of these here kikes to get his papers that he would rather
stay home and not try it, and then, when he come in, he wouldn't let him
have no land, and so he either went home again or never come.
He monkeyed with the courts, and didn't hire enough judges to do the work,
and so a person had to wait so long for his case to come up that he got sick
of waiting, and went home, and so never got what was coming to him.
He got the judges under his thumb by turning them out when they done
anything he didn't like, or by holding up their salaries, so that they had
to knuckle down or not get no money.
He made a lot of new jobs, and give them to loafers that nobody knowed
nothing about, and the poor people had to pay the bill, whether they could
or not.
Without no war going on, he kept an army loafing around the country, no
matter how much people kicked about it.
He let the army run things to suit theirself and never paid no attention
whatsoever to nobody which didn't wear no uniform.
He let grafters run loose, from God knows where, and give them the say in
everything, and let them put over such things as the following:
Making poor people board and lodge a lot of soldiers they ain't got no use
for, and don't want to see loafing around.
When the soldiers kill a man, framing it up so that they would get off.
Interfering with business.
Making us pay taxes without asking us whether we thought the things we had
to pay taxes for was something that was worth paying taxes for or not.
When a man was arrested and asked for a jury trial, not letting him have no
jury trial.
Chasing men out of the country, without being guilty of nothing, and trying
them somewheres else for what they done here.
In countries that border on us, he put in bum governments, and then tried to
spread them out, so that by and by they would take in this country too, or
make our own government as bum as they was.
He never paid no attention whatever to the Constitution, but he went to work
and repealed laws that everybody was satisfied with and hardly nobody was
against, and tried to fix the government so that he could do whatever he
pleased.
He busted up the Legislatures and let on he could do all the work better by
himself.
Now he washes his hands of us and even goes to work and declares war on us,
so we don't owe him nothing, and whatever authority he ever had he ain't got
no more.
He has burned down towns, shot down people like dogs, and raised hell
against us out on the ocean.
He hired whole regiments of Dutch, etc., to fight us, and told them they
could have anything they wanted if they could take it away from us, and
sicked these Dutch, etc., on us.
He grabbed our own people when he found them in ships on the ocean, and
shoved guns into their hands, and made them fight against us, no matter how
much they didn't want to.
He stirred up the Indians, and give them arms and ammunition, and told them
to go to it, and they have killed men, women and children, and don't care
which.
Every time he has went to work and pulled any of these things, we have went
to work and put in a kick, but every time we have went to work and put in a
kick he has went to work and did it again. When a man keeps on handing out
such rough stuff all the time, all you can say is that he ain't got no class
and ain't fitten to have no authority over people who have got any rights,
and he ought to be kicked out.
When we complained to the English we didn't get no more satisfaction.
Almost every day we give them plenty of warning that the politicians over
there was doing things to us that they didn't have no right to do. We kept
on reminding them who we was, and what we was doing here, and how we come to
come here. We asked them to get us a square deal, and told them that if this
thing kept on we'd have to do something about it and maybe they wouldn't
like it. But the more we talked, the more they didn't pay no attention to
us. Therefore, if they ain't for us they must be agin us, and we are ready
to give them the fight of their lives, or to shake hands when it is over.
Therefore be it resolved, That we, the representatives of the people of the
United States of America, in Congress assembled, hereby declare as follows:
That the United States, which was the United Colonies in former times, is
now a free country, and ought to be; that we have throwed out the English
King and don't want to have nothing to do with him no more, and are not
taking no more English orders no more; and that, being as we are now a free
country, we can do anything that free countries can do, especially declare
war, make peace, sign treaties, go into business, etc. And we swear on the
Bible on this proposition, one and all, and agree to stick to it no matter
what happens, whether we win or we lose, and whether we get away with it or
get the worst of it, no matter whether we lose all our property by it or
even get hung for it.
Author's Note
When this was reprinted in A Mencken Chrestomathy, the author added the
following note:
"From THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE. THIRD EDITION, 1923, pp. 398-402. First
printed, as Essay in American, in the Baltimore Evening Sun, Nov. 7, 1921.
Reprinted in THE AMERICAN LANGUAGE, SECOND EDITION, 1921, pp.
388-92. From the preface thereof: 'It must be obvious that more than one
section of the original is now quite unintelligible to the average American
of the sort using the Common Speech. What would he make, for example, of
such a sentence as this one: "He has called together 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"? Or of this: "He has refused for a long time, after such
dissolution, to cause others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers,
incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their
exercise." Such Johnsonian periods are quite beyond his comprehension, and
no doubt the fact is at least partly to blame for the neglect upon which the
Declaration has fallen in recent years, when, during the Wilson-Palmer
saturnalia of oppressions [1918-1920], specialists in liberty began
protesting that the Declaration plainly gave the people the right to alter
the government under which they lived and even to abolish it altogether,
they encountered the utmost incredulity. On more than one occasion, in fact,
such an exegete was tarred and feathered by shocked members of the American
Legion, even after the Declaration had been read to them. What ailed them
was simply that they could not understand its Eighteenth Century English.'
This jocosity was denounced as seditious by various patriotic Americans, and
in England it was accepted gravely and deplored sadly as a specimen of
current Standard American."
=============
Subject: The Declaration of Independence
Jerry
Worth reading, though it is 231 years old today:
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,141143,00.html?ESRC=eb.nl
Two things struck me as I re-read this tract:
1 . If the ACLU and their cronies have their way, it
will be stricken from our history because it depend on God as the source of
our inalienable rights (since I'm not Jefferson, I can't really call them
"unalienable").
2. This: "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."
That's about where we are with our current government.
I know that already, the "long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism" has already brought various Ruby Ridge style groups to the
conclusion that "it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
But for the rest of us? Wouldn't it be nice if by
using our political processes we were able to roll back the casual despotism
that oppresses us in our daily lives? Heh.
Happy Independence Day.
Ed
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