[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 111 (Tuesday, July 8, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6372-S6373]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            MORNING BUSINESS

  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, the 
Senate will proceed to a period of morning business for up to 1 hour, 
with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.
  The Senator from Oklahoma is recognized.
   Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, 232 years ago the Declaration of 
Independence established that humans have the right to self-government 
because of their unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness. Preserving these principles requires the same wisdom, 
courage and spirit of sacrifice that characterized many 18th century 
Americans.
  ``What will our children say,'' wrote Boston attorney Josiah Quincy 
II in 1768, ``When they read the history of these times, should they 
find we tamely gave away, without one noble struggle, the most 
invaluable of earthly blessings? . . . let us . . . swear we will die, 
if we cannot live freemen!''
  Indeed, the Americans chose to fight nobly and courageously. After 
the British surrender at the Battle of Saratoga, Lord Chatham, a member 
of the British House of Lords, concluded, ``I know that the conquest of 
English America is an impossibility. You cannot, I venture to say it, 
you cannot conquer America . . .''
  These principles to which the representatives of the 13 colonies 
pledged their lives, their resources, and their honor still apply to 
our Nation today.
  It was on this day, July 8, 1776, that the Declaration of 
Independence was first read publicly, having been unanimously adopted 
by the Congress only 4 days before.
  So, today, I am pleased to join with my colleague Senator Lieberman 
in starting a new, bipartisan tradition in the U.S. Senate. We will 
read the Declaration of Independence again.
  During the next hour, we will also hear from important leaders in our 
Nation's history who saw these principles of liberty, equality, and 
justice as timeless.
  Patrick Henry urges us to consider the consequences of weakly 
submitting to a tyrannical authority in the hopes of obtaining peace, 
rather than persisting in the fight to secure our freedom. In his 
famous speech at the Touro Synagogue, George Washington establishes the 
importance of religious freedom for the Nation.
  A few days before his inauguration, Abraham Lincoln makes an 
impromptu speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where he argues 
that the principles of the Declaration are incompatible with slavery. 
Finally, in his last letter, Thomas Jefferson reflects on the 
significance of the Declaration and its timeless value.
  I ask unanimous consent that Senator Lieberman and myself may enter 
into a colloquy on the reading of the Declaration of Independence and 
that following our colloquy, Senators Whitehouse, Murkowski, Webb, 
Martinez, and Lieberman be, in that order, speakers for the remainer of 
morning business.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. COBURN. ``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.''
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. ``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 shown, 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 
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.''
  Mr. COBURN. ``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.''
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. ``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.''
  Mr. COBURN. ``He has endeavored to prevent the population of these 
States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of 
Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration 
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.''
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. ``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:''
  Mr. COBURN. ``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:''
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. ``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:''

[[Page S6373]]

  Mr. COBURN. ``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.''
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. ``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 complete 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.''
  Mr. COBURN. ``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.''
  Mr. LIEBERMAN. ``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 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.----''
  Mr. COBURN. ``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 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 ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island is 
recognized.

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