Gtcotr/ws070616
Two
days ago our nation celebrated the 140th Anniversary of the signing
of the Declaration of Independence. It was on July 4, 1776 that 56 brave men
affixed their signatures to the document that serves as a landmark to the birth
of the United States of America, reasonably the most powerful and blessed
nation the world has ever seen.
It
weighs heavy upon me when I realize that the history of the founding of our
nation has all but been removed from the textbooks of primary, secondary and
university level classrooms across America and indeed around the world. The
story of the birth of the United States and the mission given it by Almighty
God deserves to be told and retold to every generation in hopes that we might
not depart from the calling given to us even before Christopher Columbus set
sail on his epic voyage in 1492.
Allow
me to share a bit of history with you in light of the fact that God always did
and still has a plan to bless America and make its people a blessing to the
world. Everywhere America goes, so goes the Gospel of
Jesus Christ.
·
Columbus
& Queen Isabella of Spain
·
1493
Pope Alexander VI & the Papal Bull (Inter Caetera)
·
Spanish
Exploration & Evangelism 1500’s
·
New
England Settlements 1600’s
·
British
Colonization
·
1700’s
·
King
George III (King of England – 1760 to 1820)
·
The
Declaration of Independence
·
1776
to 1889
·
General
George Washington
·
President
George Washington
·
Benjamin
Franklin
·
John
Jay
We
should never forget!!!
Deuteronomy 19:14 ¶ "You
shall not remove your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of
old have set, in your inheritance which you will inherit in the land that the
LORD your God is giving you to possess.
Deuteronomy 27:17 ’Cursed is
the one who moves his neighbor’s landmark.’ And all the people shall say,
’Amen!’
Job 24:2 "Some
remove landmarks; They seize flocks violently and feed on them;
Proverbs 22:28 ¶ Do not
remove the ancient landmark Which your fathers have set.
Proverbs 23:10 ¶ Do not
remove the ancient landmark, Nor enter the fields of the fatherless;
The Declaration of Independence: A
Transcription
IN CONGRESS, July 4,
1776.
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 shewn, 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.
1)
He has refused his
Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
2)
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.
3)
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.
4)
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.
5)
He has dissolved
Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his
invasions on the rights of the people.
6)
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.
7)
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.
8)
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.
9)
He has erected a
multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our
people, and eat out their substance.
10)
He has kept among us,
in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
11)
He has affected to
render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
12)
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:
13)
For Quartering large
bodies of armed troops among us:
14)
For protecting them,
by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on
the Inhabitants of these States:
15)
For cutting off our
Trade with all parts of the world:
16)
For imposing Taxes on
us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
17)
For transporting us
beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
18)
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:
19)
For taking away our
Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the
Forms of our Governments:
20)
For suspending our own
Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us
in all cases whatsoever.
21)
He has abdicated
Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against
us.
22)
He has plundered our
seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our
people.
23)
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.
24)
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.
25)
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 attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time
to time of attempts 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 interrupt 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 Honor.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration
appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
