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 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 what soever. 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, burned ́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 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 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 endeavored 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 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, 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, Wм. 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-CESAR 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. NELSON, jr., FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE, CARTER BRAXTON. North Carolina-Wм. HOOPER, JOSEPH HEWES, JOHN PENN. South Carolina-EDWARD RUTLEDGE, THOS. HEYWARD, Junr., THOMAS LYNCH, Junr., ARTHUR MIDDLETON. Georgia-BUTTON GWINNETT, LYMAN HALL, GEO. WALTON. WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL ADDRESS. WASHINGTON AS A STATESMAN. THE period during which Washington won his fame as a statesman extends from the time when he resigned his commission as commander-in-chief of the army, to his death in 1799. As this period recedes into the past, it is becoming more and more evident that no small part of his permanent fame will rest upon the sagacity, the penetration, and the tenacity of purpose which he displayed in this most exciting and critical period of our history. He was not a learned man as that term is generally understood, but he had made a collection of books on political science such as few private libraries of that day could equal. He had copied with his own hand an abstract, made by Madison, of the great authority on this subject at that time, Montesquieu's "Spirit of Laws." After resigning his commission, he was invited to meet a committee of congress to assist in devising plans for establishing the government upon a peace basis. He suggested a series of measures which reveal his far-sightedness and his practical good sense. Among these, were the establishment of a military academy for the training of officers, the creation of a navy as a means of protecting our foreign commerce, and the outlines of a system for regulating our intercourse with Indian tribes. At a meeting of the commissioners of Virginia and Maryland at his house in 1785, he suggested that they should agree upon a uniform system of duties and other commercial regulations, and a uniform currency. This was the germ of the subsequent regulation of this whole subject by constitutional provision. No one of the men at that time in public life had better opportunities for knowing, certainly no one was more profoundly convinced than Washington that the Confederation as a form of government was a failure. In view of the approaching disbanding of the army he wrote, June 8, 1783, a circular letter addressed to the Governors of the States but intended for the whole people, in which he says: "It is indispensable to the happiness of the individual States that there should be lodged somewhere a supreme power to regulate and govern the general concerns of the confederated republic, without which the union cannot be of long duration, and everything must very rapidly tend to anarchy and confusion. . . . It is only in our united character that we are known as an empire, that our independence is acknowledged, that our power can be regarded or our credit supported among foreign nations." And his letters as well as all his public acts show that all his great influence was wielded judiciously yet effectively for the formation of a federal union. The purity of his character, his unselfish patriotism and his unparalleled services pointed him out as the one person above all others to preside over the Convention of 1787. At the suggestion of Franklin he was unanimously elected its president. Very delicate and difficult were the duties of the presiding officer of such a body of men, met for such a purpose. The permanent success of their work would have been hardly possible without the impartial, conciliating, magnanimous attitude of Washington through all the proceedings. Whatever views may be entertained respecting the wisdom of his policy in regard to certain political measures, very few persons familiar with the period will now be disposed to question the fact that our present prosperity as a nation must be attributed, in no small degree, to the foresight, the prudence and the lofty patriotism with which for eight years he conducted the affairs of the government. He rose above the narrow provincial politics of the day which distorted the judgment of some of the best men with whom he had been associated. His home policy showed that he grasped clearly the new idea of national existence, and |