I must confess, every time I hear “Independence Day” I hear the voice of the character Hermey in the animated Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer show saying he wants to be “in-de-pen-dent.” I know, how terribly irreverent of me.
Yesterday while I was wasting time conducting research online, it occurred to me I couldn’t remember exactly what was written in The Declaration of Independence. Of the United States, not Hermey. Of course, I remembered the “When in the course of human events…” part and the “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” part, but I think after that was when I usually started daydreaming. I was an indifferent student of history during my school days. So I found it online [text below copied from Wikipedia] and read it.
I’d forgotten that the whole middle section is pretty much a criminal indictment. It’s a declaration to the World containing a list of crimes up with which we would no longer put, to paraphrase a famous Brit living in a different time. Reading the list, it was fascinating to me to imagine what the Founding Fathers would think of the government that has evolved from their efforts.
We don’t have a “King” and we do a passable job of replacing our President every four to eight years, but there exists in this country a faceless and ill-defined but powerfully prevalent “It” that could be inserted into this document in place of “He.” I find that disturbing.
If you get a break during your holiday celebrations — may they be filled with fun and friends and good food and safety — you should take a moment and give serious consideration to the offenses listed in this oft forgotten middle section:
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 disolutions, 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 migrations 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 legislatures.
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.
So, what do you think? How far have we wandered from the path set for us? How thoroughly have we allowed ourselves to be once again governed by tyranny? Is that an inescapable consequence of any form of governance? Or is it “an unwarrantable jurisdiction” that we should strive to “alter or abolish” as we once declared was our right? I don’t know the answers, but I think we should be asking those questions. Once again.
KD James 