lights. Among these, Thomas Paine, of Philadelphia, a native of England, took the lead. The stile, manner, and language of the author is singular and fascinating, and well calculated to rouse the passions. He undertook to prove, in a pamphlet entitled Common Sense, the necessity, practicability and advantages of independence. He observed that every body allowed it would inevitably happen at some future period; and urged several reasons to evidence that the moment was at hand. That no lurking affection for the sovereign might impede the measure, kingly government and hereditary succession were turned into ridicule. He likewise brought to his aid several passages in the Old Testament, from which he concludes, that the Almighty hath entered his protest against monarchical government. That the institution of kings was the most prosperous invention the devil ever set on foot, for the promotion of idolatry. Kings were placed in such a light, as tended not only to destroy all attachment to them, but, to make them distasteful, their office was attempted to be rendered odious; from whence the transition to the royal person was easy. Nothing could have been better timed, to accomplish the end in view, than this performance. It was received with applause; read by almost every American; and recommended as a work replete with truth, and against which none but the partial and prejudiced could form any objections. In union with the feelings and sentiments of the people, it produced surprising effects. It satisfied multitudes that it was their true interest immediately to cut the gordian knot by which the colonies had been bound to Great Britain, and to open their commerce as an independent people, to all the nations of the world.

These arguments, resounding from all quarters, seconded by the enmity against the mother country, which was now bred in the minds of the people, soon decided the matter. The Maryland delegates were instructed to return to congress, and act as they found most proper for the interests of their country. In Pennsylvania it had been fairly debated in their provincial assemblies, where it was carried by vast majorities that the delegates should agree to the determinations of congress: and John Dickinson, one of the delegates from that province was displaced, because he had spoken and voted against the motion for independency, made in congress by Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, on the seventh of June.

On the first of July, congress resolved itself into a committee of the whole, upon the subject of independency; but neither colonies nor members being unani

mous, it was postponed till the next day. After a full discussion, the measure of declaring the colonies free and independent was approved, by nearly an unanimous vote. And the fourth of July, 1776, announced to the world the erection of this new empire. The title of this act was; "A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled." And was expressed. in the following words:

July 4.

"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 happinessthat to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the con.. sent 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 a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its power in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments Jong 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 danger 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 harass 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 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 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 complete 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 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.

"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 inevitably tnterrupt 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 honour.