When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for the people to overthrow the political bands which have connected them with an executive intent on encroaching and extirpating the rights of the people, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the resistance.
We hold these truths, so well enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, to be self-evident --
(1) 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.
(2) That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
(3) 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 has shown, that mankind is more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right itself by abolishing the forms to which it is 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 this Union; and such is now the necessity which constrains it to alter its former System of Government, for the preservation of that great national maxim, Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable. The history of the present President of the United States of America is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny and Aristocracy over this Republic. 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 ordered his governors to introduce Slavery in the Territories, in flagrant disregard of sacred faith, the Law, and the Constitution.
(3) He has granted to slave-lords the right to move to free states with their slaves without manumission, in flagrant violation of their laws, in order to eradicate the practice of free labor.
(4) He has made Judges dependent on the Will of the Slave Power alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
(5) He has packed Juries, to render them submissive to the Executive Branch.
(6) He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
(7) He has allowed a Senator to be murdered on the floor of the Capitol, and rather than prosecute him in a free and fair trial he has ensured the return of the murderer to the Senate.
(8) He has combined with others to organize a pretended Congress of the Republic to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws, giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
(i) For preventing us from aiding our freedom-loving brethren in Buenaventura, while at the same time aiding the Slave Power in reducing them to a state of subjection;
(ii) For expanding the rule of Slavery and diminishing the rule of Freedom across the Continent;
(iii) For organizing slave catchers into troops to murder patriotic citizens opposing the expansion of Slavery to the Territories;
(9) He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
(10) He has illegally dissolved the rightful Congress of the United States of America and sought to arrest its membership on behalf of the Slave Power, a threat to the Constitution and the Republic.
(11) He is at this time transporting large armies of slave catchers to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the head of a republic.
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 President whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Prince or a Tyrant, is unfit to be the president of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our Populist brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their president to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Constitution and the rights of the people. We have appealed to justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably force us into a state of rebellion. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our rebellion, and hold them Friends of Tyranny and Enemies of Liberty, until such time as they abandon their president.
We therefore, the representatives and senators of the United States, 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 this Republic, solemnly publish and declare,
(a) That the rightful Congress of the United States of America should meet in Independence Hall, Philadelphia, where we began our joyous independence, no less than two weeks since it last met;
(b) That it should, at haste, impeach and remove from office the President, the Vice President, and any other civil officer of the United States which should seek to aid them;
(c) That as the representative body of the United States, the Congress of the Republic should assemble the executive and judicial bodies mandated by Law and the Constitution; and
(d) That any state government which should continue to recognize the body occupying the Capitol as the rightful Congress shall be considered dissolved, until such time as the people should establish a lawful state government.
And for the support of this Declaration and the Declaration of Independence, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other, and to the United States of America, our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
National Committee of Safety
William Pitt Fessenden
Thomas Wilson Dorr
George Bancroft
John S. Sherman
Francis Preston Blair Jr.