The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
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 [George III] 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 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 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 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 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 attentions to our British 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 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 signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:
New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts
John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
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
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
North Carolina
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Liberation vs. security
George W. made another primetime address to the nation this evening, amid declining support for the war on Iraq/terror.*
Once again, there is a conflict between his words. In one breath, he is saying that the human sacrifice is worth it, for the sake of this nation’s security. The next minute, he is saying that when this war is over, people will look back on the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq safe in the knowledge that they were vital for the liberation of the respective countries.
It seems bizarre that these two completely different arguments for war can be used interchangeably, or at least in such close proximity, without causing confusion and concern among the audience. No wonder the support for the war, and as a result Bush, is sliding. It’s just a shame that this didn’t happen a year ago, in advance of last year’s election.
* delete as applicable
H3, DC, Stone Roses, Vic & Bob and same-sex marriages
No updates of late, as I decided against taking my laptop on our weekend away to DC. It was great to get away from both New York and the internet from Friday through Monday.
Washington’s very nice. The complete absence of tall buildings makes it very different from any other US city I’ve been to, as does the abundance of relatively historic buildings – lots of buildings with columns, from the Lincoln Memorial to the Senate along with a number of the government buildings and those lining the National Mall. Hopefully some nice photos to follow.
The weather was a little stifling, making the outdoor sites a little traumatic, but we managed to take in a few:
- Arlington National Cemetery was impressive and humbling. The JFK grave-site was quite beautiful (the design reminded me of Diana’s memorial in Hyde Park, but JFK’s put Diana’s to shame big time), while the countless evenly spaced rows of military gravestones imbued nothing but respect
- The Lincoln Memorial is a great building, and the 19 foot high statue of Lincoln atop his chair is magnificent
- The Washington Memorial (obelisk) was soured somewhat by the building work going on all around, and my view is that it is outdone by its counterpart in Buenos Aires
- The World War II memorial midway between those of Washington and Lincoln is a wonderful piece of architecture, one that every visitor to Washington, DC should take time to see and experience.
We also took some time out for the National Museums of American History and Natural History. The former had some interesting stuff; the latter was somewhat disappointing, and I should vow never to go to another Natural History museum, unless we have kids – they’re all much of a muchness, such is the very nature of history.
We stayed in the Watergate Hotel. The room was great, with a picturesque view over the Potomac River, although the building itself is a hideous eyesore.
There is a new TV advert out for the Hummer H3, with the slogan "Disappear". That’s right: Disappear. I would find it hard to think of a car that it’s more difficult to disappear in. I would have loved to be in the meeting in which the ad. agency presented this idea to the client. Maybe the fact that I’m ‘blogging about it means that it has worked. Ben?
So many people have commented on the significance of the Stone Roses’ Fools Gold. While I have to say that it’s a good track, much less reference is made to their masterpiece I am the Resurrection. Thoughts on their relative merits? Any advance?
There was some email banter on Friday about the good ol’ days of Reeves and Mortimer. Good days indeed they were. It reminded me of my hypothesis about the relative merits of comedy duos. Generally, I find that there is a member who has a balancing influence (generally of lesser comedic talent) while the other member carries the pair from a comedy perspective. Wise was the balancer, while Morecambe was the comedy genius; Reeves was the balancer, Mortimer the comedy genius. To a lesser degree, one could argue (and I would) that Dec is the comedy talent behind Ant and Dec. Maybe giving the latter the title of balancer is flattering – maybe they’re just the hanger-on that comes along with the more talented individual. Not sure.
Yesterday, a repeat of the Simpsons episode was shown in which Marge’s sister reveals that she is gay. The episode itself was funny, but I was more amused (and somewhat taken aback) by the warning that preceded the show: "This episode contains discussion of same-sex marriage. Parental discretion is advised." While some states have made the bold, correct move of recognising same-sex marriages from a legal perspective, it seems that children (or should I say parents) must still be warned about it. I find that laughable.
Have you read my ‘blog?
Well? Have you?
Protect the possessive apostrophe
The example given by Ed, Wales is somewhat misguided, but I share the view of the 89% of voting people that the possessive apostrophe should stay. As well as being a beautiful part of the English language, it’s often necessary to avoid confusion.
My favourite comment is from Karen, England below:
"…we should stop being so lazy! Languages would be very difficult to learn if we did not have punctuation, so lets keep it."
Don’t count your chickens
I know they say that you shouldn’t count your chickens, but I’ve not had any spurious comments for over three days now, unless you count the rather odd comment to the post immediately below this one.
Hopefully the renaming of the comments has worked and fended off the evil spammers.
Separated at birth?
Some articles worthy of note
It’s good that the location of Bin Laden has finally been established. Porter Goss (brother of Matt and Luke, I believe), the head of the CIA says that he has an "excellent idea" of where he’s hiding. That’s good to know. Perhaps there should be a Where’s Waldo? style book published called Where’s Osama?
Meanwhile, take a read of the Observer’s wonderful interview of Noel Gallagher conducted by David Walliams. The reason for Liam’s despise of Peter Kay (towards the end) is reason in itself to read the interview.
Comments vs. words of wisdom
I’ve been inundated as of late with spam comments – mainly promoting either some poker website or some drug that enlarges a certain anatomical part.
There’s a feature whereby I can tag them as spam, and although it claims to learn from previous tagging, it seems to be an uphill struggle. As such, I’ve tried to nip it in the bud by renaming the comment link in my template. While I can’t guarantee that what’s contained therein is indeed a word of wisdom, I’m hoping that the renaming of the link will cause spam engines to pass it by. I’ll let you know whether it’s successful, or else you’ll find out for yourself.
While on the subject of templates, here’s one that I quite like.
Fox, Gatorade and Mandy
Although I hate it, I am occasionally caught watching Fox 5 News at 10pm of an evening. (It’s 10pm: do you know where your children are?) They have a feature in which they review some weak product for which they’ve no doubt been slipped some cash – last night’s featured item was a crayon that could be used to cover up grey hairs, coming in various colours. The feature is called Gotta Have It? and is succeeded by members of the general public giving their response to this very question. This is then succeeded by the irritating Rosanna Scotto asking the bizarre question: So, Do You Gotta Have It? I seriously don’t know where to start with this one.
There’s a great Gatorade advert on at the moment highlighting the benefits of Gatorade across a multitude of sports. I felt the voice-over worth sharing:
A sport is a sport. A foul is a foul. A dunk’s a dunk. An out’s an out, and that’s that. A bat’s a bat, even if it’s flat. Ten feet on the East side is ten feet on the West side. Football is football, unless it’s futbol. A win’s a win. A loss is a loss. But no matter what, you better come with it or don’t come at all, because it’s 90 feet to first no matter where home is.
Finally, was the Mandy that Westlife referred to recently the same girl that Barry Manilow crooned about all those years ago? She certainly shares some similar traits – giving without takin’, kissing and stopping them (Barry or one of the Westlife boys) from shakin’. She certainly sounds like the same gal, but she must be getting a little haggard by now, and I would’ve thought those Westlife boys could do better for themselves.
Refreshing outlook
A helicopter crashed yesterday, plunging into the East River. Incredibly, no one was killed, although one English woman is in critical condition.
It seems that the majority of the occupants were Australian. It was refreshing to hear their press conference on this evening’s news. They made comments like "it was a freak accident" and "we don’t want it to ruin out holiday." The obsession with legal action in the US means that this sort of response from Americans would be unheard of. They would be baying for blood and wanting compensation. It’s nice to hear a more tempered and pragmatic approach to life.
Libertines etc.
Thanks to Joost for introducing me to the Libertines’ Time for Heroes from the Up the Bracket album. Had a great morning walk to work today listening to the My Top Rated playlist. The Kings of Leon’s Happy Alone has just kicked in. Just as some people try to eat Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles without chewing, try and listen to that track without moving your head – you just can’t.
Someone has probably already thought of (and made lots of money out of) this idea, but I thought I’d share. Given the simplicity of the iPod user experience, wouldn’t it be good if you could download skins for your player via iTunes. You could configure the function of each of the buttons and have a different display than the standard. Particularly appealing with the new photo-versions given the colour display. Thoughts?
Oh, another lyrical grammatical faux-pas for you from Madness’s Embarrassment: I’m feeling twice as older.
Small Island
I’ve just read a wonderful book called Small Island by Andrea Levy. It describes the history of West Indians coming to the UK, while at the same time painting a wonderfully vivid and poignant picture of two families brought together by circumstance. It also sadly highlights the racism that was, and still is, commonplace within the UK.
Before the second World War, West Indians considered themselves as belonging to the Mother Country, such was the influence and pull of the British Empire. Yet on arriving in the UK, many having served in the war, the same inclusivity of the Empire was not shared, few even knowing where Jamaica was (Africa?)
I encourage you to read the book in its entirety, but if nothing else, read page 116: click on the link above, hover over the book image and search for 116. Use your Amazon credentials if necessary to authenticate. It paints a desperate picture.
Saturdays of Thunder
It seems that football (soccer) is doomed. There’s a regular game at the J. J. Walker Stadium on Hudson Street, one block north of Houston at 9pm on Saturdays. Not the most socially acceptable time, but often I’ll try and make it.
However, for the last few Saturdays, with the exception of last week, either heavy rain or serious thunderstorms have put the games in jeopardy. Tonight, there’s an impressive lightning storm working its way up the Hudson, hitting on both the New York and New Jersey sides, which is great to watch from our window. Hopefully, it will have worked its way sufficiently far north by 9pm for tonight’s game to go ahead. Apologies for the title of this post, btw.
Steps and pieces
I’ve been seeing how many steps it takes to get up the escalator in the PATH station where I work. Thursday (out of rush hour), I took 88 steps to get the top – full pelt. This morning, I took 92 steps (off-peak), indicating that I was running faster. This evening, I took 91 steps running down the escalator. I could’ve sworn I ran faster than this morning, but alas not, unless the downward escalator is faster – which could be the case given that it doesn’t have the trauma of increasing people’s potential energy.
There is a conundrum going on in the office at the moment, which has me interested: with unlimited people-resources, how would you go about solving a jigsaw puzzle given a significant time constraint, say a day.
Some of the techies among us have decided that it’s best to scan the shape of each of the pieces and use some form of algorithm to put the puzzle together. My preference is to think of this as a project management challenge as opposed to one of technology.
Although it never seemed to make sense to me as a child, having an early step to identify the straight-edged pieces and define the border strikes me as a sound early move. The technique thereafter depends largely on the answer to a specific question: can the picture be broken down logically by colour.
If the answer is yes, then it makes sense to divide the pieces up and assign one team to each of the distinguishable areas. It would then be relatively simple for teams to share pieces which they didn’t feel belonged to them, and for the groups to regroup towards the end to connect the large sections together within the boundary.
If the answer is no, then this changes the problem significantly. Dividing the team by area seems tough, as unless you can allot the pieces to the right team, you’re in trouble. I was wondering whether it would help or hinder to have, say, four identical sets of pieces (all of the same, complete jigsaw). Giving each team a set to work with would be beneficial, as they would not have any dependencies on other tracks. However, the determination of each piece would mean a wider set of pieces to choose from, which would slow down progress.
More to follow on this one, I think.
Jimmy Krankie
My wife presented an interesting and amusing conundrum earlier. If you were to fancy Jimmy Krankie, would you be:
(a) heterosexual
(b) gay
(c) a paedophile.
Perhaps this is one just for the amusement of Steve: I’m on the fence as to whether it has wide appeal or whether it’s something limited to the tickling of my fancy. Either way, it’s probably safe on this page. In posting, I found it difficult to establish the definitive spelling of his/her name. Only the BBC could give me the authoritative version.
Tipping points
I’m reading a book called the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell at the moment. All in all, it’s a terrible read, as it seems to be made up of a string of loosely related commentary which the author finds of interest. (Much like this ‘blog, I hear you say.) However, it contains some interesting threads (much like this ‘blog, I hear you say), and has reminded me of a few things.
Recently, my friend (too strong a word?) Alan wrote a post entitled Unfreezing the Interface, which among other things talks about how difficult it is to change a design feature/flaw once it has reached a critical mass. The good example he talks about consists of the Back and Forward buttons (see above) which Marc Andreessen incorporated into Mosaic, the first successful internet browser. At the time, I’m sure little thought went into these buttons, yet they remain to this day, albeit with the added feature of dropdowns enabling multi-step hopping. Rightly or wrongly, they are so widely used now that a decision to move away from this type of navigation would give any browser a significant handicap in a saturated market.
I remember the advent of the revolutionary look-and-feel of Windows ‘95. Having been on Windows NT 3.51 at the time, myself and my friend and then colleague Bal held off on the upgrade ‘due to stability concerns’ given the size of the files that we were dealing with. The actual reason, as I remember, was that we didn’t want to change, as NT 3.51 had given us something that we liked and that we were comfortable with. When I did finally make the move, it was with much resentment (albeit in the short-term), as my world had been turned upside down. The lack of meaningful competition in the OS market meant that Microsoft had the luxury of being able to revolutionise the PC experience without significant concern of losing market share.
It seems a shame that the level of comfort that we humans develop for the steady-state is such a barrier to innovation, even when what we currently have is flawed. Consider the QWERTY and Dvorak keyboard layouts for example. Dvorak has been around for about 70 years, but in the 60 years before it came about, QWERTY had become sufficiently commonplace to ward off superior competition. The argument for Dvorak is even stronger now, as the problem of typewriter keys getting jammed with one another is a thing of the past. Yet 50 years from now, I would be amazed if anything other than QWERTY is the standard. (I’ve never before realised how difficult it is to type QWERTY, btw.)
Similarly, there was a programme on TV in the UK some time ago about two designers who were tasked with re-designing some items that were in widespread use starting from a clean sheet of paper. The two editions I remember featured the bra and the toilet. Both of their creations shared some features of their predecessors but had notable differences. I’ve not seen either one on the market since.
It would be interesting to see how a bunch of people who had not been exposed to Microsoft would group and name the menu options that can be accessed from Excel 2003 or the wider Office suite. (Do such people exist?) Edit (as a group) suggests that you might be changing something, but contains the read-only Find function, probably because from a technical perspective it is closely aligned to the Replace function. Microsoft would be bold to radically move from the current groupings, however.
At first we put up with design flaws (or are not aware of their existence), and later we learn to embrace them. Once they’re embraced, it’s so difficult to get rid of them.
The BBC’s technology
Quite some time back, Pete Clifton, the editor of the BBC news site, promised us an insight into the technology side of their offering. Finally, here it is.
It’s written by a techie, so is predictably more factual than engaging. (I’ve worked with a lot of techies throughout my career, and you very rarely find those that can write compelling and engaging editorial. Some may argue that I struggle – as a relative non-techie – on the evidence of this site, but I’d beg to differ. For those who are interested in one of the few such gifted techies, click on the Joel on Software link either here or across to the right.)
I wasn’t aware that as an international user, my BBC content was being sucked directly from New York; I always imagined the requests traversing the Atlantic and the content coming back faster than Concorde could ever manage. It’s also interesting to read how the complex funding of the BBC as an organisation has a seemingly necessary impact on architectural decisions: different server farms to cater for different audiences.
Having given us a lowdown on the delivery side of the site (how we get the content), it would also be interesting to find out how the editorial side works: how news stories get promoted, how stories are written, how workflow works etc. That would fascinate me.
Bush and Africa
Once again, it seems that Bush’s foreign policy is limited to smokin’ out those terrorists and alleged hoarders of weapons of mass destruction (as long as there is an oil interest in the latter).
While Blair and Brown have made some seemingly significant steps to alleviate Africa’s debt to the developed world, Bush has indicated that a key part of the plan "doesn’t fit our [the US's] budget process". This rationale never seemed to get a mention when the US government kept returning cap-in-hand to the Senate requesting more funding for the war in Iraq.
When Bush was counting on Blair for his support in the Middle East, it was there, at the detriment of Blair’s reputation back home. When Blair requests similar support from across the Atlantic, it fails to materialise.
While it’s true that Africa has less political clout in the US than it does in Europe (and Bush doesn’t have the likes of Geldof to contend with), I struggle with the selective respect for humanity that Bush shows: we’ll help out/intervene, as long as there is mileage in it for us. Kyoto will not be signed because it’s too tough on the US; African debt will not be addressed because there would be no political benefit in the US.
While this country has a number of positive elements, its selfish, arrogant, insular view on the rest of the world is both scary and depressing. Unfortunately, in November, America voted to keep it going for a further four years.