to be stored at the wish of the importer, until the Non-Importation Agreement shall cease, or be sold under the direction of the Committee aforesaid; and in the last mentioned case, the owner or owners of such goods shall be re-imbursed out of the sales the first cost and charges; the profit, if any, to be applied towards relieving and employing such poor inhabitants of the Town of Boston as are immediate sufferers by the Boston Port Bill; and a particular account of all goods so returned, stored, or sold, to be inserted in the publick papers, and if any goods or merchandises shall be imported after the said first day of February, the same ought forthwith to be sent back again, without breaking any of the packages thereof. Eleventh. That a Committee be chosen in every County, City, and Town, by those who are qualified to vote for Representatives in the Legislature, whose business it shall be attentively to observe the conduct of all persons touching this Association; and when it shall be made to appear to the satisfaction of a majority of any such Committee, that any person within the limits of their appointment has violated this Association, that such a majority do forthwith cause the truth of the case to be published in the Gazette, to the end that all such foes to the rights of British America may be publickly known and universally contemned as the enemies of American liberty; and thenceforth we respectively will break off all dealings with him or her. Twelfth. That the Committee of Correspondence in the respective Colonies, do frequently inspect the entries of their Custom Houses, and inform each other, from time to time, of the true state thereof, and of every other material circumstance that may occur relative to this association. Thirteenth. That all manufactures of this country be sold at reasonable prices, so that no undue advantage be taken of a future scarcity of goods. Fourteenth. And we do further agree and resolve that we will have no Trade, Commerce, Dealings, or Intercourse whatsoever with any Colony or Province in North America, which shall not accede to, or which shall hereafter violate this Association, but will hold them as unworthy of the right of freemen, and as inimical to the liberties of this country. And we do solemnly bind ourselves and our constituents under the ties aforesaid, to adhere to this Association until such parts of the several Acts of Parliament passed since the close of the last war, as impose or continue duties on Tea, Wine, Molasses, Syrups, Paneles, Coffee, Sugar, Pimento, Indigo, Foreign Paper, Glass, and Painters' Colors, imported into America, and extend the powers of the Admiralty Courts beyond their ancient limits, deprive the American subjects of Trial by Jury, authorize the judge's certificate to indemnify the prosecutor from damages that he might otherwise be liable to from a trial by his peers, require oppressive security from a claimant of ships or goods seized, before he shall be allowed to defend his property, are repealed.—And until that part of the act of the 12th George III., ch. 24, entitled, "An Act for the better securing his majesty's Dock-Yards, Magazines, Ships, Ammunition, and Stores," by which any person charged with committing any of the offences therein described, in America, may be tried in any Shire or County within the realm, is repealed—and until the four Acts passed in the last session of Parliament, viz.: that for stopping the Port and blocking up the Harbor of Boston-that for altering the Charter of government of the Massachusetts Bay-and that which is entitled "An Act for the better Administration of Justice," etc.—and that for extending the limits of Quebec, etc., are repealed. And we recommend it to the Provincial Conventions, and to the Committees in the respective Colonies, to establish such farther regulations as they may think proper for carrying into execution this Association. The foregoing Association being determined upon by the Congress, was ordered to be subscribed by the several members thereof; and thereupon, we have hereunto set our respective names accordingly. In Congress, Philadelphia, October 20, 1774. PEYTON RANDOLPH, President. VIII. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.—1776. On May 5, 1776, the Continental Congress declared that the exercise of every kind of authority under the Crown of England should be totally suppressed. On June 7 Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, offered and John Adams, of Massachusetts, seconded resolutions declaring that the United Colonies were, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they were absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and Great Britain was totally absolved; that it was expedient forthwith to take effectual measures for forming foreign alliances, and that a plan of confederation should be prepared and transmitted to the Colonies for their consideration and approbation. These resolutions were discussed June 8 and 10, when the well-known Committee of five was appointed to draft a declaration in compliance with the first resolution, and the further discussion of the subject was postponed to July 1. The resolution was adopted July 2, and on the 4th of the same month, the Declaration that the Committee had reported was agreed upon. It was not engrossed and signed by the members until August 2, following. See Bancroft, Vol. IV., Chap. 28; Hildreth, Vol. III., p. 127; Frothingham, þ. 539; Story, Vol. I., p. 137; The American Government, Chap. IV. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 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 unalien able 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 altar 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 transcient 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 altar 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 meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; fo that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners : refusing to pass others to encourage their migration 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 hithe 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 legislature. 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 depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury : For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring 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 complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty, and 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 |