[NFBNJ] The Declaration of Independence

[joe ruffalo]

Greetings to all!
Received from Debbie Azzarone and thought appropriate to forward.

Warmly,
Joe

----

From: Debbie Azzarone
Sent: Saturday, July 03, 2021 10:56 PM
To: Debbie Azzarone
Subject: Blind Vine. The Declaration of Independence

Hello Viners,



When was the last time we read the Declaration of Independence in it’s 
entirety?



Maybe we should take advantage of the time that rain cancelations of 
picnics, parades, and fireworks have given us to read it once more to 
remember why we celebrate this day.





Note: The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the 
parchment Declaration of Independence (the document on display in the 
Rotunda at the National Archives Museum.) The spelling and punctuation 
reflects the original.


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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.


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Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton



North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn



South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton



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



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



New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris



New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark



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







Happy Birthday America!

>From Your Blind Vine Team



"A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back 
to you when you have forgotten the words." -Unknown


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