[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 101 (Thursday, June 26, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H5810-H5811]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Rothfus) is
recognized for 36 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
General Leave
Mr. ROTHFUS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and then
submit extraneous materials for the Record on the topic of this Special
Order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Pennsylvania?
There was no objection.
Mr. ROTHFUS. Mr. Speaker, next week, on the Fourth of July, we
celebrate our Nation's birthday. The Declaration of Independence,
signed 238 years ago, laid the groundwork for the greatest Nation in
history. The Founders, in the Declaration of Independence and our
Constitution, created a novel system of government, one of the people,
by the people, and for the people, that recognizes God-given
unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Although the Declaration was written over two centuries ago, our
Founders' sage words are just as relevant and just as important today,
especially those who work in public service.
As a Pennsylvanian, I am proud that the Declaration was signed in
Philadelphia. It is truly humbling to read these important words on the
floor of the House of Representatives, and I thank my colleagues for
joining me this afternoon:
In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the
13 United States of America,
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.
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 shewn, 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.
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.
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.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these
States, for that purpose obstructing the Laws for
Naturalization of Foreigners, refusing to pass others to
encourage their migrations 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.
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.
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 compleat 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.
I am privileged to be joined here with a colleague from the
Commonwealth of Kentucky, Congressman Andy Barr, from Kentucky's Sixth
District, who will continue with the recitation of the Declaration.
Mr. BARR. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and to continue the
reading of the Declaration of Independence:
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.
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.
I yield to my friend from Pennsylvania.
Mr. ROTHFUS. Joining me is my colleague from the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, who will continue with the recitation of the Declaration,
Congressman Scott Perry.
Mr. PERRY. Mr. Speaker, I am on the House floor, privileged to
continue with the recitation.
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 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
[[Page H5811]]
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.
{time} 1315
Mr. ROTHFUS. Thank you, Congressman Perry.
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for their help in reviewing and
reading the words of the Declaration of Independence, the words that
birthed our Nation.
As families gather next week to celebrate our Nation's birthday, let
us not forget these words, and let us not forget those who gave all for
freedom, those in our military, especially those who are deployed today
in harm's way.
May God bless and protect them, and may God bless and protect the
United States of America.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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