Junius Unmasked Part 23

12. "He has erected a mult.i.tude of new offices [by a self-a.s.sumed power], and sent hither swarms of new officers to hara.s.s our people and eat out their substance.

13. "He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies [and s.h.i.+ps of war] without the consent of our legislatures.

14. "He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

15. "He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our const.i.tutions, and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his a.s.sent to their acts of pretended legislation for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; for protecting by a mock trial from punishment, any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states; for cutting off our trade with all ports of the world; for imposing taxes on us without our consent; for depriving us of the benefits of trial by jury; for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses; for abolis.h.i.+ng the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establis.h.i.+ng 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 in these [states]; for taking away our charters, abolis.h.i.+ng 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.

16. "He has abdicated government here [withdrawing his governors and declaring us out of his allegiance and protection].

17. "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

18. "He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries, to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun, with circ.u.mstances of cruelty and perfidy, unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

19. "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.

20. "He has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of the frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, s.e.xes, and conditions of [existence].

21. ["He has excited treasonable insurrection of our fellow-citizens, with the allurements of forfeiture and confiscation of our property.]

22. ["He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prost.i.tuted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this a.s.semblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the LIBERTIES of one people with crimes which he urges them to commit against the LIVES of another.]

23. "In every stage of these oppressions we have pet.i.tioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated pet.i.tions have been answered only by repeated injuries.

24. "A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people [who mean to be free. Future ages will scarcely believe that the hardiness of one man adventured, within the short compa.s.s of twelve years only, to lay a foundation so broad and so undisguised for tyranny over a people fostered and fixed in principles of freedom.]

25. "Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts, by their legislature, to extend [a] jurisdiction over [these, our States.] We have reminded them of the circ.u.mstances of our emigration and settlement here, [no one of which would warrant so strange a pretention. These were effected at the expense of our own blood and treasure, una.s.sisted by the wealth or strength of Great Britain; that in const.i.tuting, indeed, our several forms of government, we had adopted one common king, thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league and amity with them; but that submission to their Parliament was no part of our const.i.tution, nor ever in idea, if history may be credited; and] we appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, [as well as to] the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which [were likely] to interrupt our connection and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity; [and when occasions have been given them, by the regular course of their laws, of removing from their councils the disturbers of our harmony, they have, by their free election, reestablished them in power. At this very time, too, they are permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch and foreign mercenaries, to invade and destroy us. These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love for them,] and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind--enemies in war, in peace friends. [We might have been a free and a great people together; but a communion of grandeur and of freedom, it seems, is below their dignity. Be it so, since they will have it. The road to happiness and to glory is open to us, too. We will tread it apart from them, and] acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our [eternal]

separation.

26. "We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress a.s.sembled, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these [States, reject and renounce all allegiance and subjection to the King of Great Britain, and all others who may hereafter claim by, through, or under them; we utterly dissolve all political connection which may heretofore have subsisted between us and the people or Parliament of Great Britain; and, finally, we do a.s.sert and declare these colonies to be free and independent States;] 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, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor."

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Ma.s.sacre at Lexington.

[B] See Note A, page 277.

a.n.a.lYSIS.

We have to do with the original draft, and to let the reader see the hand of a master, I will a.n.a.lyze it.

"I love method," said Mr. Paine. The method of the piece stands as follows, and, for the sake of elucidation, I have numbered the paragraphs in the original;

I. INTRODUCTION, viz:--Paragraph 1.

II. BILL OF RIGHTS--Paragraph 2.

III. INDICTMENT--under three general charges: _Usurpation_, _Abdication_, and _War_, as follows:

USURPATION.

Par. 3, 4, 5--Laws usurped, and hereunder:

_a._ Negatived.

_b._ Forbidden and neglected.

_c._ Refused, unless rights are surrendered.

Par. 6, 7, 8, 9--Legislation usurped, and hereunder:

_a._ Legislative bodies meet at the wrong place.

_b._ Legislative bodies dissolved.

_c._ Refused to have them elected.

_d._ Obstructing legislation for naturalization.

Par. 10, 11, 12--Judiciary powers usurped, and hereunder:

_a._ Destroyed by his negative.

_b._ Made the judges dependent on his will, _c._ And erected new offices by his own will.

Par. 13, 14--Military powers usurped, and hereunder:

_a._ Established without consent of legislatures.

_b._ Made superior to civil power.

Par. 15--Jurisdiction usurped, and hereunder:

_a._ Troops, the quartering of.

_b._ Trial, of a mock nature.

_c._ Trade, the cutting off.

_d._ Taxes, without consent.

_e._ Trial, depriving of.

_f._ Transportation, to be _g._ Tried, for pretended offenses.

_h._ Laws, abolis.h.i.+ng the English.

_i._ Charters, the taking of.

_j._ Laws, abolis.h.i.+ng special ones.

_k._ Const.i.tutions, altering form of.

_l._ Legislatures, suspension of.

_m._ Power, to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

ABDICATION.

Par. 16--Declaring us out of his allegiance and protection.