The circular letter from Congress, which accompanied the Articles of Confederation, when they were transmitted by the president, Henry Laurens, to the several legislatures, commends them as a plan "for securing the freedom, sovereignty and independence of the United States"; as the best that could be adapted to the circumstances of all; as the only one which had any tolerable prospect of general ratification; as "essential to their very existence as a free people," and without which they might "soon be constrained to bid adieu to independence, to liberty and safety.” "Permit us then," it continued, "earnestly to recommend these articles to the immediate and dispassionate attention of the legislatures of the respective States. Let them be candidly reviewed under a sense of the difficulty of combining in one general system the various sentiments and interests of a continent divided into so many sovereign and independent communities, under a conviction of the absolute necessity of uniting all our councils and all our strength to maintain and defend our common liberties; let them be examined with a liberality becoming brethren and fellow-citizens, surrounded by the same imminent dangers, contending for the same illustrious prize, and deeply interested in being for ever bound and connected together by ties the most intimate and indissoluble; and finally let them be adjusted with the temper and magnanimity of wise and patriotic legislators, who, while they are concerned with the prosperity of their own more immediate circle, are capable of rising superior to local attachments when they may be incompatible with the safety and glory of the general confederacy. John Dickinson, the author of the Articles of Confederation, was born in Maryland, Nov. 13, 1752. He studied law in Philadelphia, and then went to England, where he remained for three years at the Temple in London. On his return, he established himself in the practice of the law in Philadelphia, where his abilities and acquirements procured for him eminent success. He entered public life in 1764, as a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly, and immediately took a leading place in legislation and debate. In September, 1765, he was appointed a delegate to the general Congress which assembled at New York in October, and was the author of the resolutions of that body remonstrating against the measures of the government of Great Britain. He afterwards wrote many of the state papers put forth by the Continental Congress. The first production of his pen appears to have been a pamphlet published in 1765, entitled, The Late Regulations respecting the British Colonies on the continent of America, considered in a Letter from a Gentleman in Philadelphia to his Friend in London, in which, with great spirit and force of argument, he exhibited the impolicy of the ministerial measures. But the work which gave him his great reputation was his Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies, a series of twelve letters published in the Pennsylvania Chronicle, in 1767. Their object was to arouse his countrymen to the illegality of British taxation and to the necessity of vigorous action. The Farmer's Letters were read everywhere with intense interest and produced a profound impression. Yet Dickinson considered the resolution of independence, in 1776, untimely and unwise, and did not sign the Declaration. He felt a great repugnance to a final separation from Great Britain. He served faithfully in the army, however, for a time as a private soldier; and in 1777 he was made a brigadier-general of the Pennsylvania militia. He was elected a representative to Congress from Delaware, in 1779, and wrote the Address to the States put forth by Congress in May of that year. He was successively president of the states of Delaware and Pennsylvania (1781-85). He was a member of the convention which framed the national Constitution; and in 1788 he pub lished nine letters, over the signature of "Fabius," advocating the adoption of the Constitution. He died at Wilmington, Del., Feb. 14, 1808. Dickinson College, at Carlisle, Penn., is a monument to his memory. He was a warm friend of education, and founded and liberally endowed this college. The act incorporating the college declares that, "in memory of the great and important services rendered to his country by his excellency John Dickinson, Esq., president of the supreme executive council, and in commemoration of his very liberal donation to the institution, the said college shall be forever hereafter called and known by the name of Dickinson College." OLD SOUTH LEAFLETS, GENERAL SERIES. No. 1. Constitution of the United States. 2. Articles of Confedera tion. 3. Declaration of Independence. 4. Washington's Farewell Address. 5. Magna Charta. 6. Vane's "Healing Question." 7. Charter of Massachusetts Bay, 1629. 8. Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1638. 9. Franklin's Plan of Union, 1754. 10. Washington's Inaugurals. II. Lincoln's Inaugurals and Emancipation Proclamation. 12. The Federalist, Nos. 1, 2 and 3-etc. Price, five cents per copy; one hundred copies, three dollars. Directors of Old South Studies, Old South Meeting House, Boston. PUBLISHED FOR SCHOOLS AND THE TRADE BY D. C. HEATH & CO., 5 Somerset St., Boston. 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 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 sub stance. 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 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 Govern ments: 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, 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 |