Founding America: Documents from the Revolution to the Bill of Rights

by Jack N. Rakove (editor)

  —John Adams—

  LETTER TO ABIGAIL ADAMS

  JULY 3, 1776

  PHILADELPHIA JULY 3D. 1776

  HAD A DECLARATION OF Independency been made seven Months ago, it would have been attended with many great and glorious Effects. ————We might before this Hour, have formed Alliances with foreign States. We should have mastered Quebec and been in Possession of Canada. You will perhaps wonder, how such a Declaration would have influenced our Affairs, in Canada, but if I could write with Freedom I could easily convince you, that it would, and explain to you the manner how. Many Gentlemen in high Stations and of great Influence have been duped, by the ministerial Bubble of Commissioners to treat. And in real, sincere Expectation of this Event, which they so fondly wished, they have been slow and languid, in promoting Measures for the Reduction of that Province. Others there are in the Colonies who really wished that our Enterprise in Canada would be defeated, that the Colonies might be brought into Danger and Distress between two Fires, and be thus induced to submit. Others really wished to defeat the Expedition to Canada, lest the Conquest of it, should elevate the Minds of the People too much to hearken to those Terms of Reconciliation which they believed would be offered Us. These jarring Views, Wishes and Designs, occasioned an opposition to many salutary Measures, which were proposed for the Support of that Expedition, and caused Obstructions, Embarrassments and studied Delays, which have finally, lost Us the Province.

  All these Causes however in Conjunction would not have disappointed Us, if it had not been for a Misfortune, which could not be foreseen, and perhaps could not have been prevented, I mean the Prevalence of the small Pox among our Troops. This fatal Pestilence compleated our Destruction. It is a Frown of Providence upon Us, which We ought to lay to heart.

  But on the other Hand, the Delay of this Declaration to this Time, has many great Advantages attending it. The Hopes of Reconciliation, which were fondly entertained by Multitudes of honest and well meaning tho weak and mistaken People, have been gradually and at last totally extinguished. Time has been given for the whole People, maturely to consider the great Question of Independence and to ripen their Judgments, dissipate their Fears, and allure their Hopes, by discussing it in News Papers and Pamphletts, by debating it, in Assemblies, Conventions, Committees of Safety and Inspection, in Town and County Meetings, as well as in private Conversations, so that the whole People in every Colony of the 13, have now adopted it, as their own Act. This will cement the Union, and avoid those Heats and perhaps Convulsions which might have been occasioned, by such a Declaration Six Months ago.

  But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.

  You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

  THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

  JULY 4, 1776

  IN CONGRESS, JULY 4., 177E)

  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 refuted 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 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 C
onsent:

  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 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 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.

  -John Hancock

  NEW HAMPSHIRE:

  Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

  MASSACHUSETTS:

  John Hancock, 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 YORK:

  William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

  NEW JERSEY:

  Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

  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

  MARYLAND:

  Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

  VIRGINIA:

  George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jef ferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

  NORTH CAROLINA:

  William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

  SOUTH CAROLINA:

  Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

  GEORGIA:

  Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

  DRAFTING THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION

  Thomas Jefferson: Notes of Proceedings in Congress (July 12-August 1, 1776)

  PAGE 145

  Articles as Revised by Congress (August 20, 1776)

  PAGE 154

  Articles as Approved (November 15, 1777)

  PAGE 160

  CONGRESS HAD SEVERAL PURPOSES in drafting the Articles of Confederation. One was to give formal constitutional identity to the revolutionary union of the thirteen autonomous states that were declaring their independence from British imperial rule. Since 1774 the Continental Congress had effectively conducted war and diplomacy in the name of the separate provinces of British North America. But if Americans were “to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate & equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s god entitle them,” they had to demonstrate that they were a power—that is, a nation-state-like other nations. Equally important, Congress recognized the need to clarify the boundaries between its authority and that of the states. It had to define the extent of its own authority while recognizing other powers that would remain lodged with the states. Further, it had to find ways to accommodate different interests among the states, based on their respective extent, their population, and the nature of their economies.

  As Congress was readying to declare independence, the committee chaired by John Dickinson was preparing to report its draft of a confederation. Congress debated this draft extensively during July and August 1776. Three issues soon emerged as major barriers to agreement: the rule of voting in Congress; the rule for apportioning the expenses of war among the states; and the control of unsettled western lands in the interior of the continent. Disagreement on these points and the more urgent demands of the war led Congress to put the Articles aside in late August 1776.

  Congress resumed debate on the confederation in the spring of 1777, only to find that the same issues remained intractable. Finally, in October 1777, in exile at York, Pennsylvania, following the British occupation of Philadelphia, Congress finally mustered the determination to complete the task. The great American victory at Saratoga gave Congress reason to hope that France would now enter the war on its side, and having a completed confederation to demonstrate that Americans could indeed form a nation would give Britain’s old enemy an additional incentive to make a new alliance.

  —Thomas Jefferson—

  NOTES OF PROCEEDINGS IN CONGRESS

  JULY 12-August 1, 1776

  [JULY 12-AUGUST, 1, 1776]

  ON FRIDAY JULY 12 the Committee appointed to draw the articles of confederation reported them and on the 22d the house resolved themselves into a committee to take them into consideration. On the 30th and 31st of that month & 1st of the ensuing, those articles were debated which determined the,proportion or quota s of money which each state should furnish to the common treasury, and the manner of voting in Congress. The first of these articles was expressed in the original draught in these words. ‘Art. XI. All charges of war & all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defence, or general welfare, and allowed by the United states assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several colonies in proportion to the number of inhabitant
s of every age, sex & quality, except Indians not paying taxes, in each colony, a true account of which, distinguishing the white inhabitants, shall be triennially taken & transmitted to the assembly of the United states.’