[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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