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
**** Scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally
* (vi) It has been asserted that this paragraph was expunged because it was not palatable to those delegates who were slaveholders, and that it was stricken out lest it should cause them to cast a negative vote on the question. There is no proof that such selfish motives actuated any member of that assembly. It was a sacred regard for truth which caused it to be stricken out. No such charge as the paragraph contained could justly be made against George III., then under arraignment. The slave-trade was begun and carried on long before the reign of any of his house, and it is not known that he ever gave his assent to any thing relating to slavery, except to abolish it, and to declare the trade a piracy. By a resolution offered by Charles F. Mercer, of Virginia, and adopted by Congress in 1817, the slave-trade was declared "a piracy." Mr. Jefferson was the first American statesman, and probably the first writer of modern times, who denounced that infamous traffic as "a piratical warfare."--See Life of Richard Henry Lee, i., 176.
[[[Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence, and Amendments.--The Debaters.]]]
{ 280}of a _people who mean to be free.' * Future ages will scarce believe that the hardiness of one man adventured, within the short compass of twelve years only, to build a foundation, so broad and undisguised, for tyranny over a people fostered and fixed in principles of freedom._
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 a ** jurisdiction over _these our states._ *** We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here, _no one of which could warrant so strange a pretension; that these were effected at the expense of our own blood and treasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of Great Britain; that in constituting, indeed, our severed 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 Constitution, nor ever in idea, if history may be credited; and_ we **** appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, _as well as to_ (v) the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which _were likely to_ (vi) interrupt our connection and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of 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, re-established 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 (vii) and] foreign mercenaries to invade and destroy us. These facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love for them_; 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.