Arts, Crafts, Music, & Events of Breckinridge County Issue 2, July 2015 | Page 11

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.