deavored 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 made 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 inev itably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and 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 the 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.

The following bold song was written, it is supposed, by Dr. Jonathan Mitchell Sewall, of New Hampshire, and was published about the time independence was declared :

:

ON INDEPENDENCE.

Come all you brave soldiers, both valiant and free,
It's for Independence we all now agree;

Let us gird on our swords, and prepare to defend,
Our liberty, property, ourselves, and our friends.

In a cause that's so righteous, come let us agree,
And from hostile invaders set America free,
The cause is so glorious we need not to fear,
But from merciless tyrants we'll set ourselves clear.
Heaven's blessing attending us, no tyrant shall say,
That Americans e'er to such monsters gave way,
But fighting, we'll die in America's cause,
Before we'll submit to tyrannical laws.

George the Third, of Great Britain, no more shall he reign,
With unlimited sway o'er these free States again,

Lord North, nor old Bute, nor none of their clan,

Shall ever be honored by an American.

May Heaven's blessings descend on our United States,
And grant that the union may never abate;
May love, peace, and harmony ever be found,
For to go hand in hand America round.

Upon our grand Congress may Heaven bestow,
Both wisdom and skill our good to pursue;
On Heaven alone dependent we'll be,

But from all earthly tyrants we mean to be free.
Unto our brave Generals may Heaven give skill,
Our armies to guide, and the sword for to wield,
May their hands, taught to war, and their fingers to fight,
Be able to put British armies to flight.

And now brave Americans, since it is so,

That we are independent, we'll have them to know,

That united we are, and united we'll be,

And from all British tyrants we'll try to keep free.

May Heaven smile on us in all our endeavors,
Safe guard our seaports, our towns, and our rivers,
Keep us from invaders by land and by sea,
And from all who'd deprive us of our liberty.

CHAPTER VI.

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION

VIEW OF IT.

MR. JEFFERSON'S

OWHERE in America was there to be found a more

Now

deep-rooted hatred of every thing partaking of the nature of oppression than in the extreme Southern Colonies. And, although for a long time after the beginning of the struggle for independence the situation of these Colonies prevented their becoming conspicuous in affairs, they were never behind in the development of sentiment, and exhibited their disposition by sending to the Continental Congress their most able and advanced men. And it is now a pretty well established matter of history that North Carolina preceded Mr. Jefferson and the Congress with a formal declaration of separation from Great Britain. Among the good Whigs of that "province" independence was deemed necessary and advisable, and freely discussed, it is claimed, by the State historians, even before the battles of Lexington and Concord.

On the 19th of May, 1775, in a meeting of prominent Whigs at Charlotte, the seat of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, independence was the main theme, and after due deliberation, and a night's rest for reflection, on the next day (the 20th of May), the following declaration was actually adopted unanimously and published by the meeting :

THE MECKLENBURG DECLARATION.

1st. Resolved, That whosoever directly or indirectly abetted, or in any way, form, or manner, countenanced the unchartered and dangerous invasion of our rights, as claimed by Great Britain, is an enemy to this country-to America-and to the inherent and inalienable rights of man.

2d. Resolved, That we, the citizens of Mecklenburg County, do hereby dissolve the political bands which have connected us to the mother country, and hereby absolve ourselves from all allegiance to the British Crown, and abjure all political connection, contract, or association, with that nation, who have wantonly. trampled on our rights and liberties, and inhumanly shed the blood of American patriots at Lexington.

3d. Resolved, That we do hereby declare ourselves a free and independent people; are, and of right ought to be, a sovereign and self-governing Association, under the control of no power other than that of our God, and the general government of the Congress; to the maintenance of which independence, we solemnly pledge to each other our mutual co-operation, our lives our fortunes, and our most sacred honor.

4. Resolved, That as we now acknowledge the existence and control of no law or legal officer, civil or military, within this county, we do hereby ordain and appoint as a rule of life, all, each, and every of our former laws,-wherein, nevertheless, the crown of Great Britain never can be considered as holding rights, privileges, immunities, or authority therein.

5th. Resolved, That it is further decreed, that all, each, and every military officer in this county, is hereby reinstated in his former command and authority,-he acting conformably to these regulations. And that every member present, of this delegation, shall henceforth be a civil officer, viz., a Justice of the Peace, in the character of a "Committeeman," to issue process, hear and determine all matters of controversy, according to said adopted laws, and to preserve peace, union, and harmony in said county; and to use every exertion to spread the love of country and fire of freedom throughout America, until a more general and organized government be established in this Province.

That North Carolina preceded the other Colonies in this matter, and first gave instructions to her delegates

in the Congress to favor a formal declaration of independence on the part of all the Colonies, there need be no doubt.

In the following letter to John Adams, Mr. Jefferson thus treats the Mecklenburg Declaration :—

MONTICELLO, July 9, 1819. “DEAR SIR,—I am in debt to you for your letters of May the 21st, 27th, and June the 22d. The first, delivered me by Mr. Greenwood, gave me the gratification of his acquaintance; and a gratification it always is, to be made acquainted with gentlemen of candor, worth, and information, as I found Mr. Greenwood to be. That on the subject of Mr. Samuel Adams Wells shall not be forgotten in time and place, when it can be used to his advantage.

"But what has attracted my peculiar notice, is the paper from Mecklenburg County, of North Carolina, published in the Essex Register, which you were so kind as to enclose in your last, of June the 22d. And you seem to think it genuine. I believe it spurious. I believe it to be a very unjustifiable quiz, like that of the volcano, so minutely related to us as having broken out in North Carolina, some half a dozen years ago, in that part of the country, and perhaps, in that very county of Mecklenburg, for I do not remember its exact locality. If this paper be really taken from the Raleigh Register,' as quoted, I wonder it should have escaped Ritchie, who culls what is good from every paper, as the bee from every flower; and the National Intelligencer,' too, which is edited by a North Carolinian; and that the fire should blaze out all at once in Essex, one thousand miles from where the spark is said to have fallen. But, if really taken from the 'Raleigh Register,' who is the narrator, and is the name subscribed real, or is it as fictitious as the paper itself? It appeals, too, to an original book which is burnt, to Mr. Alexander, who is dead, to a joint letter from Caswell, Hughes, and Hooper, all dead, to a copy sent to the dead Caswell, and another sent to Doctor Williamson, now probably dead, whose memory did not recollect, in the history he has written of North Carolina, this gigantic step of its county of Mecklenburg. Horry, too, is silent in his history of Marion, whose scene of action was the country bordering on Mecklenburg. Ramsey, Marshall, Jones, Girardin, Wirt, histo