July, 1775: Causes and Necessity
| In the month of July, Thomas Jefferson wrote a Declaration. But it wasn’t in 1776, and it wasn’t about Independence. It was a year earlier, on July 6, 1775, when Jefferson and John Dickenson wrote, “The Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms,” explaining the position of the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia. It’s a document of about a dozen paragraphs, which I have edited below. Don’t say England wasn’t warned… *** A reverence for our great Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end. The legislature of Great Britain, however, stimulated by an inordinate passion for a power… attempted to effect their cruel and impolitic purpose of enslaving these Colonies by violence… Our forefathers, left their native land, to seek on these shores a residence for civil and religious freedom. At the expence of their blood, at the hazard of their fortunes, without the least charge to the country from which they removed, by unceasing labor, and an unconquerable spirit, they effected settlements in the distant and inhospitable wilds of America…It is universally confessed, that the amazing increase of the wealth, strength, and navigation of the realm, arose from this source; and the minister, who so wisely and successfully directed the measures of Great Britain in the late war, publicly declared, that these colonies enabled her to triumph over her enemies. Parliament…in the course of eleven years…has undertaken to give and grant our money without our consent; passed statues for extending the jurisdiction of courts of Admiralty and Vice-Admiralty beyond their ancient limits; deprived us of accustomed and inestimable privilege of trial by jury; suspended the legislature of one of the colonies for interdicting all commerce to the capital of another; exempted the “murderers” of colonists from legal trial and from punishment; and quartered soldiers upon the colonists in time of profound peace. By one statute it is declared that parliament can “of right make laws to bind us IN ALL CASES WHATSOEVER.” What is to defend us against so enormous, so unlimited a power? The indignation of the Americans was roused, it is true; but it was the indignation of a virtuous, loyal, and affectionate people. A Congress of Delegates from the United Colonies was assembled at Philadelphia, on the fifth day of last September…We have pursued every temperate, every respectful measure…But subsequent events have shewn, how vain was this hope of finding moderation in our enemies. The Lords and Commons in their address, in the month of February, said, that “a rebellion at that time actually existed within the province of Massachusetts Bay”…Soon after, the commercial intercourse of whole colonies, with foreign countries, and with each other, was cut off by an act of Parliament…and large re-inforcements of ships and troops were immediately sent over to General Gage. Fruitless were all the entreaties, arguments, and eloquence of an illustrious band of the most distinguished Peers, and Commoners, who nobly and strenuously asserted the justice of our cause…Parliament adopted an insidious manoeuvre calculated to divide us, to establish a perpetual auction of taxations where colony should bid against colony, all of them uninformed what ransom would redeem their lives…What terms more rigid and humiliating could have been dictated by remorseless victors to conquered enemies? In our circumstances to accept them, would be to deserve them. General Gage, who in the course of the last year had taken possession of the town of Boston, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, and still occupied it as a garrison, on the 19th day of April, sent out from that place a large detachment of his army, who made an unprovoked assault on the inhabitants of the said province, at the town of Lexington…From thence the troops proceeded in warlike array to the town of Concord, where they set upon another party of the inhabitants of the same province, killing several and wounding more, until compelled to retreat by the country people suddenly assembled to repel this cruel aggression. By this perfidy wives are separated from their husbands, children from their parents, the aged and the sick from their relations and friends, who wish to attend and comfort them; and those who have been used to live in plenty and even elegance, are reduced to deplorable distress. His troops have butchered our countrymen, have wantonly burnt Charles-Town; our ships and vessels are seized; the necessary supplies of provisions are intercepted, and he is exerting his utmost power to spread destruction and devastation around him. We are reduced to the alternative of chusing an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers, or resistance by force…We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them. Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable…the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will…employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with our one mind resolved to die Free-men rather than live Slaves. We mean not to dissolve that Union which has so long and so happily subsisted between us, and which we sincerely wish to see restored…We have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, and establishing independent states. We fight not for glory or for conquest. In our own native land, in defence of the freedom that is our birth-right…we have taken up arms. We shall lay them down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors… and not before. |
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