Part 1042

"Because statesmen like Dickinson and communities like Maryland were slow in believing that the right moment for a declaration of independence had come, the preposterous theory has been suggested that the American Revolution was the work of an unscrupulous and desperate minority, which, through intrigue mingled with violence, succeeded in forcing the reluctant majority to sanction its measures. Such a misconception has its root in an utter failure to comprehend the peculiar character of American political life, like the kindred misconception which ascribes the rebellion of the colonies to a sordid unwillingness to bear their due share of the expenses of the British Empire. It is like the misunderstanding which saw an angry mob in every town-meeting of the people of Boston, and characterized as a 'riot' every deliberate expression of public opinion. No one who is familiar with the essential features of American political life can for a moment suppose that the Declaration of Independence was brought about by any less weighty force than the settled conviction of the people that the priceless treasure of self-government could be preserved by no other means. It was but slowly that this unwelcome conviction grew upon the people; and owing to local differences of circumstances it grew more slowly in some places than in others. Prescient leaders, too, like the Adamses and Franklin and Lee, made up their minds sooner than other people. Even those conservatives who resisted to the last, even such men as John Dickinson and Robert Morris, were fully agreed with their opponents as to the principle at issue between Great Britain and America, and nothing would have satisfied them short of the total abandonment by Great Britain of her pretensions to impose taxes and revoke charters. Upon this fundamental point there was very little difference of opinion in America. As to the related question of independence, the decision, when once reached, was everywhere alike the reasonable result of free and open discussion; and the best possible illustration of this is the fact that not even in the darkest days of the war already begun did any state deliberately propose to reconsider its action in the matter. The hand once put to the plough, there was no turning back."

_J. Fiske, The American Revolution, chapter 4 (volume 1). _

ALSO IN: _G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), volume 4, chapter 28._

_H. S. Randall, Life of Jefferson, volume 1, chapter 5._

_C. F. Adams, Life of John Adams, chapter 4._

_J. Madison, Papers, volume 1, pages 9-27._

_J. Sanderson, Biographies of the Signers of the Declaration._

See, also, INDEPENDENCE HALL.

{3235}

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (July). Text of the Declaration of Independence.

The following is the text of the great manifesto:

"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 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 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 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 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 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 attention 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. {3236} 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, Wm. Whipple, Matthew Thornton. Massachusetts Bay Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry. Rhode Island Step. Hopkins, William Ellery. Connecticut. Roger Sherman, Sam'el Huntington, Wm. Williams, Oliver Wolcott. New York Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frans. Lewis, Lewis Morris. New Jersey Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras. Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark. Pennsylvania Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson, Geo. Ross. Delaware. Cæsar Rodney, Geo. Read, Tho. M'Kean. Maryland Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Virginia. George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Th Jefferson, Benja. Harrison, Thos. Ne]son, jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton. North Carolina. Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn. South Carolina. Edward Rutledge, Thos. Heyward, Junr., Thomas Lynch, Junr., Arthur Middleton. Georgia. Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton."

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (July). Constitutional effect of the Declaration of Independence.

"The Declaration of Independence did not create thirteen sovereign states, but the representatives of the people declared that the former English colonies, under the name which they had assumed of the United States of America, became, from the 4th day of July, 1776, a sovereign state and a member of the family of nations, recognized by the law of nations; and further, that the people would support their representatives with their blood and treasure, in their endeavor to make this declaration a universally recognized fact. Neither congress nor the people relied in this upon any positive right belonging either to the individual colonies or to the colonies as a whole. Rather did the Declaration of Independence and the war destroy all existing political jural relations, and seek their moral justification in the right of revolution inherent in every people in extreme emergencies. … Political theories had nothing to do with this development of things. It was the natural result of given circumstances and was an accomplished fact before anyone thought of the legal consequences which might subsequently be deduced from it."

_H. von Holst, Constitutional and Political History of the United States, volume 1, chapter 1._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (July). Independence declared in New Jersey and Governor Franklin arrested.

See NEW JERSEY: A. D. 1774-1776.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (August). The struggle for New York and the Hudson. Battle of Long Island.

"Washington had been informed, early in January, that General Sir Henry Clinton had sailed from Boston, with a considerable body of troops, on a secret expedition. Apprehending that the city of New York was his destination, he immediately dispatched General Charles Lee to Connecticut to raise troops, and to proceed to that city to watch and oppose Clinton wherever he might attempt to land. Six weeks before the evacuation of Boston [March 17, 1776], Lee had encamped near New York with twelve hundred militia. Already the Sons of Liberty had been busy, and overt acts of rebellion had been committed by them. They had seized the cannons at Fort George, and driven Tryon, the royal governor, on board the Asia, a British armed vessel in the harbor. In March, Clinton arrived at Sandy Hook, just outside New York harbor, and on the same day, the watchful Lee providentially entered the city. The movement, although without a knowledge of Clinton's position, was timely, for it kept him at bay. Foiled in his attempt upon New York, that commander sailed southward. … The destination of Howe, when he left Boston, was also unknown to Washington. Supposing he, too, would proceed to New York, he put the main body of his army in motion toward that city, as soon as he had placed Boston in a state of security. He arrived in New York about the middle of April [April 14], and proceeded at once to fortify the town and vicinity, and also the passes of the Hudson Highlands, fifty miles above. In the mean while, General Lee, who had been appointed to command the American forces in the South, had left his troops in the charge of General Lord Stirling [March 7], and was hastening toward the Carolinas to watch the movements of Clinton, arouse the Whigs, and gather an army there. … Pursuant to instructions, General Howe proceeded toward New York, to meet General Clinton and Parker's fleet. He left Halifax on the 11th of June, [1776], and arrived at Sandy Hook on the 29th. On the 2d of July he took possession of Staten Island, where he was joined by Sir Henry Clinton [July 11], from the South, and his brother, Admiral Lord Howe [July 12], with a fleet and a large land force, from England. Before the first of August, other vessels arrived with a part of the Hessian troops, and on that day, almost 30,000 soldiers, many of them tried veterans, stood ready to fall upon the republican army of 17,000 men, mostly militia, which lay intrenched in New York and vicinity, less than a dozen miles distant. The grand object in view was the seizure of New York and the country along the Hudson, so as to keep open a communication with Canada, separate the patriots of New England from those of the other states, and to overrun the most populous portion of the revolted colonies. {3237} This was the military plan, arranged by ministers. They had also prepared instructions to their commanding generals, to be pacific, if the Americans appeared disposed to submit. Lord Howe and his brother, the general, were commissioned to 'grant pardon to all who deserved mercy,' and to treat for peace, but only on terms of absolute submission on the part of the colonies, to the will of the King and parliament. After making a foolish display of arrogance and weakness, in addressing General Washington as a private gentleman, and being assured that the Americans had been guilty of no offense requiring a 'pardon' at their hands, they prepared to strike an immediate and effective blow. The British army was accordingly put in motion on the morning of the 22d of August [1776], and during that day, 10,000 effective men, and forty pieces of cannon, were landed on the western end of Long Island, between the present Fort Hamilton and Gravesend village. Already detachments of Americans under General Sullivan, occupied a fortified camp at Brooklyn, opposite New York, and guarded seven passes on a range of hills which extend from the Narrows to the village of Jamaica. When intelligence of the landing of the invading army reached Washington, he sent General Putnam, with large reinforcements, to take the chief command on Long Island; and to prepare to meet the enemy. The American troops on the island now [August 26], numbered about 5,000. The British moved in three divisions. The left, under General Grant, marched along the shore toward Gowanus; the right, under Clinton and Cornwallis, toward the interior of the island; and the center, composed chiefly of Hessians, under De Heister, marched up the Flatbush road, south of the hills. Clinton moved under cover of night, and before dawn on the morning of the 27th, he had gained possession of the Jamaica pass, near the present East New York. At the same time, Grant was pressing forward along the shore of New York Bay, and at day-break, he encountered Lord Stirling, where the monuments of Greenwood cemetery now dot the hills. De Heister advanced from Flatbush at the same hour, and attacked Sullivan, who, having no suspicions of the movements of Clinton, was watching the Flatbush Pass. A bloody conflict ensued, and while it was progressing, Clinton descended from the wooded hills, by the way of Bedford, to gain Sullivan's rear. As soon as the latter perceived his peril, he ordered a retreat to the American lines at Brooklyn. It was too late; Clinton drove him back upon the Hessian bayonets, and after fighting desperately, hand to hand, with the foe in front and rear, and losing a greater portion of his men, Sullivan was compelled to surrender. As usual, misfortunes did not come single. While these disasters were occurring on the left, Cornwallis descended the port-road to Gowanus, and attacked Stirling. They fought desperately, until Stirling was made prisoner. Many of his troops were drowned while endeavoring to escape across the Gowanus Creek, as the tide was rising; and a large number were captured. At noon the victory for the British was complete. About 500 Americans were killed or wounded, and 1,100 were made prisoners. These were soon suffering dreadful horrors in prisons and prison-ships, at New York. The British loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, was 367. It was with the deepest anguish that Washington had viewed, from New York, the destruction of his troops, yet he dared not weaken his power in the city, by sending reinforcements to aid them. He crossed over on the following morning [August 28], with Mifflin, who had come down from the upper end of York island with a thousand troops, and was gratified to find the enemy encamped in front of Putnam's lines, and delaying an attack, until the British fleet should co-operate with him. This delay allowed Washington time to form and execute a plan for the salvation of the remainder of the army, now too weak to resist an assault with any hope of success. Under cover of a heavy fog, which fell upon the hostile camps at midnight of the 29th, and continued until the morning of the 30th, he silently withdrew them from the camp, and, unperceived by the British, they all crossed over to New York in safety, carrying everything with them but their heavy cannons. … Howe, who felt sure of his prey, was greatly mortified, and prepared to make an immediate attack upon New York, before the Americans should become reinforced, or should escape from it."

_B. J. Lossing, Family History of the United States, period 5, chapter 3._

ALSO IN: _H. P. Johnston, The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn, chapters 1-5, (Members of Long Island History Society, volume 3)._

_T. W. Field, The Battle of Long island (Members of Long Island History Society, volume 2)._

_W. A. Duer, Life of Wm. Alexander, Earl of Stirling, chapter 5._

_J. Fiske, The American Revolution, chapter 5 (volume 1)._

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (September). Quiet death of proprietary government in Pennsylvania and adoption of a State Constitution.

See PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1776.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1776 (September-November). The struggle for New York and the Hudson. Successes of the British. Washington's retreat into New Jersey.