Written by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson to clarify why
the Second Continental Congress had taken up arms against the
British.
A declaration by the Representatives of the United Colonies of
North America, now met in General Congress at Philadelphia, setting
forth the causes and necessity of their taking up arms.
If it was possible for men, who exercise their reason, to believe,
that the Divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human
race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over
others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects
of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and
oppressive, the Inhabitants of these Colonies might at least require
from the Parliament of Great Britain some evidence, that this dreadful
authority over them, has been granted to that body. But a reverence
for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of
common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject,
that government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and
ought to be administered for the attainment of that end. The
legislature of Great Britain, however, stimulated by an inordinate
passion for a power, not only unjustifiable, but which they know to be
peculiarly reprobated by the very constitution of that kingdom, and
desperate of success in any mode of contest, where regard should be
had to truth, law, or right, have at length, deserting those,
attempted to effect their cruel and impolitic purpose of enslaving
these Colonies by violence, and have thereby rendered it necessary for
us to close with their last appeal from Reason to Arms,-Yet, however
blinded that assembly may be, by their intemperate rage for unlimited
domination, so to slight justice and the opinion of mankind, we esteem
ourselves bound, by obligations of respect to the rest of the world,
to make known the justice of our cause.
Our forefathers, inhabitants of the island of Great Britain, left
their native land, to seek on these shores a residence for civil and
religious freedom. At the expence of their blood, at the hazard of
their fortunes, without the least charge to the country from which
they removed, by unceasing labor, and an unconquerable spirit, they
effected settlements in the distant and inhospitable wilds of America,
then filled with numerous and warlike nations of barbarians. Societies
or governments, vested with perfect legislatures, were formed under
charters from the crown, and an harmonious intercourse was established
between the colonies and the kingdom from which they derived their
origin. The mutual benefits of this union became in a short time so
extraordinary, as to excite astonishment. It is universally confessed,
that the amazing increase of the wealth, strength, and navigation of
the realm, arose from this source; and the minister, who so wisely and
successfully directed the measures of Great Britain in the late war,
publicly declared, that these colonies enabled her to triumph over her
enemies.-Towards the conclusion of that war, it pleased our sovereign
to make a change in his counsels.-From that fatal moment, the affairs
of the British empire began to fall into confusion, and gradually
sliding from the summit of glorious prosperity, to which they had been
advanced by the virtues and abilities of one man, are at length
distracted by the convulsions, that now shake it to its deepest
foundations. The new ministry finding the brave foes of Britain,
though frequently defeated, yet still contending, took up the
unfortunate idea of granting them a hasty peace, and of then subduing
her faithful friends.
These devoted colonies were judged to be in such a state, as to
present victories without bloodshed, and all the easy emoluments of
statuteable plunder.-The uninterrupted tenor of their peaceable and
respectful behaviour from the beginning of colonization, their
dutiful, zealous, and useful services during the war, though so
recently and amply acknowledged in the most honorable manner by his
majesty, by the late king, and by Parliament, could not save them from
the meditated innovations.-Parliament was influenced to adopt the
pernicious project, and assuming a new power over them, have, in the
course of eleven years, given such decisive specimens of the spirit
and consequences attending this power, as to leave no doubt concerning
the effects of acquiescence under it. They have undertaken to give and
grant our money without our consent, though we have ever exercised an
exclusive right to dispose of our own property; statutes have been
passed for extending the jurisdiction of courts of Admiralty and
Vice-Admiralty beyond their ancient limits; for depriving us of the
accustomed and inestimable privilege of trial by jury, in cases
affecting both life and property; for suspending the legislature of
one of the colonies: for interdicting all commerce to the capital of
another; and for altering fundamentally the form of government
established by charter, and secured by acts of its own legislature
solemnly confirmed by the crown; for exempting the "murderers" of
colonists from legal trial, and in effect, from punishment; for
erecting in a neighboring province, acquired by the joint arms of
Great Britain and America, a despotism dangerous to our very
existence; and for quartering soldiers upon the colonists in time of
profound peace. It has also been resolved in parliament, that
colonists charged with committing certain offences, shall be
transported to England to be tried.
But why should we enumerate our injuries in detail? By one statute
it is declared, that parliament can "of right make laws to bind us IN
ALL CASES WHATSOEVER." What is to defend us against so enormous, so
unlimited a power? Not a single man of those who assume it, is chosen
by us; or is subject to our controul or influence; but, on the
contrary, they are all of them exempt from the operation of such laws,
and an American revenue, if not diverted from the ostensible purposes
for which it is raised, would actually lighten their own burdens in
proportion as they increase ours. We saw the misery to which such
despotism would reduce us. We for ten years incessantly and
ineffectually besieged the Throne as supplicants; we reasoned, we
remonstrated with parliament, in the most mild and decent language.
But Administration, sensible that we should regard these oppressive
measures as freemen ought to do, sent over fleets and armies to
enforce them. The indignation of the Americans was roused, it is true;
but it was the indignation of a virtuous, loyal, and affectionate
people. A Congress of Delegates from the United Colonies was assembled
at Philadelphia, on the fifth day of last September. We resolved again
to offer an humble and dutiful petition to the King, and also
addressed our fellow-subjects of Great Britain. We have pursued every
temperate, every respectful measure: we have even proceeded to break
off our commercial intercourse with our fellow-subjects, as the last
peaceable admonition, that our attachment to no nation upon earth
should supplant our attachment to liberty.-This, we flattered
ourselves, was the ultimate step of the controversy: But subsequent
events have shewn, how vain was this hope of finding moderation in our
enemies.
Several threatening expressions against the colonies were inserted
in his Majesty’s speech; our petition, though we were told it was a
decent one, and that his Majesty had been pleased to receive it
graciously, and to promise laying it before his Parliament, was
huddled into both houses amongst a bundle of American papers, and
there neglected. The Lords and Commons in their address, in the month
of February, said, that "a rebellion at that time actually existed
within the province of Massachusetts bay; and that those concerned in
it, had been countenanced and encouraged by unlawful combinations and
engagements, entered into by his Majesty’s subjects in several of the
other colonies; and therefore they besought his Majesty, that he would
take the most effectual measures to enforce due obedience to the laws
and authority of the supreme legislature."-Soon after, the commercial
intercourse of whole colonies, with foreign countries, and with each
other, was cut off by an act of Parliament; by another, several of
them were entirely prohibited from the fisheries in the seas near
their coasts, on which they always depended for their sustenance; and
large re-inforcements of ships and troops were immediately sent over
to General Gage.
Fruitless were all the entreaties, arguments, and eloquence of an
illustrious band of the most distinguished Peers, and Commoners, who
nobly and strenuously asserted the justice of our cause, to stay, or
even to mitigate the heedless fury with which these accumulated and
unexampled outrages were hurried on.-Equally fruitless was the
interference of the city of London, of Bristol, and many other
respectable towns in our favour. Parliament adopted an insidious
manoeuvre calculated to divide us, to establish a perpetual auction of
taxations where colony should bid against colony, all of them
uninformed what ransom would redeem their lives; and thus to extort
from us, at the point of the bayonet, the unknown sums that should be
sufficient to gratify, if possible to gratify, ministerial rapacity,
with the miserable indulgence left to us of raising, in our own mode,
the prescribed tribute. What terms more rigid and humiliating could
have been dictated by remorseless victors to conquered enemies? In our
circumstances to accept them, would be to deserve them.
Soon after the intelligence of these proceedings arrived on this
continent, General Gage, who in the course of the last year had taken
possession of the town of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts
Bay, and still occupied it as a garrison, on the 19th day of April,
sent out from that place a large detachment of his army, who made an
unprovoked assault on the inhabitants of the said province, at the
town of Lexington, as appears by the affidavits of a great number of
persons, some of whom were officers and soldiers of that detachment,
murdered eight of the inhabitants, and wounded many others. From
thence the troops proceeded in warlike array to the town of Concord,
where they set upon another party of the inhabitants of the same
province, killing several and wounding more, until compelled to
retreat by the country people suddenly assembled to repel this cruel
aggression. Hostilities, thus commenced by the British troops, have
been since prosecuted by them without regard to faith or
reputation.-The inhabitants of Boston being confined within that town
by the General their Governor, and having, in order to procure their
dismission, entered into a treaty with him, it was stipulated that the
said inhabitants having deposited their arms with their own
magistrates, should have liberty to depart, taking with them their
other effects. They accordingly delivered up their arms, but in open
violation of honor, in defiance of the obligation of treaties, which
even savage nations esteemed sacred, the Governor ordered the arms
deposited as aforesaid, that they might be preserved for their owners,
to be seized by a body of soldiers; detained the greatest part of the
inhabitants in the town, and compelled the few who were permitted to
retire, to leave their most valuable effects behind.
By this perfidy wives are separated from their husbands, children
from their parents, the aged and the sick from their relations and
friends, who wish to attend and comfort them; and those who have been
used to live in plenty and even elegance, are reduced to deplorable
distress.
The General, further emulating his ministerial masters, by a
proclamation bearing date on the 12th day of June, after venting the
grossest falsehoods and calumnies against the good people of these
colonies, proceeds to "declare them all, either by name or
description, to be rebels and traitors, to supersede the course of the
common law, and instead thereof to publish and order the use and
exercise of the law martial."-His troops have butchered our
countrymen, have wantonly burnt Charles-Town, besides a considerable
number of houses in other places; our ships and vessels are seized;
the necessary supplies of provisions are intercepted, and he is
exerting his utmost power to spread destruction and devastation around
him.
We have received certain intelligence that General Carleton, the
Governor of Canada, is instigating the people of that province and the
Indians to fall upon us; and we have but too much reason to apprehend,
that schemes have been formed to excite domestic enemies against us.
In brief, a part of these colonies now feels, and all of them are sure
of feeling, as far as the vengance of administration can inflict them,
the complicated calamities of fire, sword, and famine.-We are reduced
to the alternative of chusing an unconditional submission to the
tyranny of irritated ministers, or resistance by force.-The latter is
our choice.-We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing
so dreadful as voluntary slavery.-Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid
us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant
ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive
from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding
generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them, if we
basely entail hereditary bondage upon them.
Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are
great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly
attainable.-We gratefully acknowledge, as signal instances of the
Divine favour towards us, that his Providence would not permit us to
be called into this severe controversy, until we were grown up to our
present strength, had been previously exercised in warlike operation,
and possessed of the means of defending ourselves,-With hearts
fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before
God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those
powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us,
the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in
defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance,
employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with our [one]
mind resolved to dye Free-men rather than live Slaves.
Lest this declaration should disquiet the minds of our friends and
fellow-subjects in any part of the empire, we assure them that we mean
not to dissolve that Union which has so long and so happily subsisted
between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored.-Necessity has
not yet driven us into that desperate measure, or induced us to excite
any other nation to war against them.-We have not raised armies with
ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing
independent states. We fight not for glory or for conquest. We exhibit
to mankind the remarkable spectacle of a people attacked by unprovoked
enemies, without any imputation or even suspicion of offence. They
boast of their privileges and civilization, and yet proffer no milder
conditions than servitude or death.
In our own native land, in defence of the freedom that is our
birth-right, and which we ever enjoyed till the late violation of
it-for the protection of our property, acquired solely by the honest
industry of our fore-fathers and ourselves, against violence actually
offered, we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when
hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, and all danger
of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before.
With an humble confidence in the mercies of the supreme and
impartial Judge and Ruler of the universe, we most devoutly implore
his divine goodness to protect us happily through this great conflict,
to dispose our adversaries to reconciliation on reasonable terms, and
thereby to relieve the empire from the calamities of civil war.
By order of Congress,
JOHN HANCOCK,
President.
Attested,
CHARLES THOMSON,
Secretary.
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/causes-and-necessity-taking-arms
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