Greetings, Manic Fans. Les here with the timely 4th of July Blog I refuse to let die(Seriously….if you count all the times I’ve posted it….
1. Â I posted it at That Guy with the Glasses as NOTYETUSEDNAME
2. Â I re-posted it at That Guy with the Glasses as Positive Troll after post one vanished from the archive.
3. Â I then re-posted it at Manic Expression Mark I as Les when TGWTG vanished post #2 of it.
That means 3, count ‘em, 3 times that it’s been lost due to a platform upgrade…..)
And now at Manic Expression Mark II, this will make the 4th time I’ve posted it after the 3rd re-write of a blog carelessly lost into oblivion.  Ahem….moving on.
I would like to acknowledge 56 American heroes who committed treason against the Crown of England to sign the most unprecedented document in history:
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 shown, 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 of 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 states
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 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.â€
The Declaration began as a resolution by
Richard Henry Lee, Delegate of Virginia
It was tabled to form a Declaration committee to refine the draft of the resolution for the vote and to produce a document to publish to the world on the historical act of the Colonies breaking off from the Mother Country(England) if the vote passed. The committee consisted of:
John Adams, Delegate of Massachusetts
Dr. Benjamin Franklin, Delegate of Pennsylvania
Roger Sherman, Delegate of Connecticut
Robert Livingston, Delegate of New York
and Thomas Jefferson, Delegate of Virginia
The first draft of the Declaration was penned by Thomas Jefferson and presented to the Continental Congress on July 2, 1776
and it was soundly debated for 2 straight days, with much of it deleted in the final copy. As unprecedented as the resolution was, it was also provisionally adoptable only by a unanimous vote by the Congress(also without precedent). One dissenting vote would’ve killed the resolution for American independence. To get the final vote, Jefferson had to let go of an anti-black slavery passage in the document. The measure was adopted at the end of July 3rd. The document was printed up on July 4th and was signed first by
John Hancock, Continental Congressional President
And then by the 55 other Delegates of the newly formed United States of America.
Understand, these 56 men were risking their lives by this act. Had England won the Revolutionary War, they all would’ve been hanged by the Crown for treason. At the time of the signing, the colonial army(made up of minutemen and freshly drafted farmers and craftsmen) were outnumbered 3-1 by the might of England’s seasoned musket men. Nonetheless, these men valued the principles of independence more than their lives. They signed it,
George Washington, General of the army of the United States of America
went on to lead the new country to victory, and we’ve been our own new Nation ever since.
And so, I’d like to list the names of these courageous patriots whose actions made possible the country I live in. I wish they were alive today so I could thank them, personally.
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, John Adams, Samuel Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: Lewis Morris, William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis
New Jersey: John Witherspoon, Richard Stockton, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania: Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, 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: Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, George Wythe, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina: Joseph Hewes, William Hooper, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Lyman Hall, Button Gwinnett, George Walton
To the 56 men I just listed, I’d like to say Thank You for risking the gallows to bring forth the Nation I am proud to live in. And, to Manic Expression members from The United States of America, Happy 4th of July, my friends. To Manic Expression members not from the United States. Thank you for your indulgence of my patriotism today. Peace.
