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Veterans Day – A Tribute to the Military Service of our Ancestors RESEARCH DRAFT 2013
“Separation of church and state did not exist in the British Empire. County government held court and provided roads while Parish vestrymen helped the poor and monitored moral behavior. Dunmore County Court records now list the presence of John Tipton, Gentleman. What may seem a courtesy to us in the twenty-first century was an official honorarium in colonial Virginia. Being referred to as “gentleman” was a title reserved for use by prominent men. Thomas Marshall, father of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall was the clerk of this court. In 1774, John Tipton began his career as an American patriot. On June 16th, a public meeting was called for the citizens of Dunmore County. From north to south, American colonists were outraged and concerned about the British imposition of martial law in Boston. The citizens formed a Committee of Safety and Correspondence for the county. John Tipton, gentleman, and four other men were elected to serve on the Committee. The Reverend Peter John Muhlenberg was Chairman. This Committee wrote and published the Woodstock Resolutions declaring the liberties of Englishmen and their right to resist tyranny as reported in an article in the Virginia Gazette published in Williamsburg on August 4th. When King George III learned of the Woodstock Resolutions, he branded them “seditious”. Tipton was not only a patriot in word; he was a patriot in deed. As a soldier, his first command was as Captain in Lord Dunmore’s War. He led his men to the “Battle of Big Connaway”, also called the Battle of Point Pleasant serving under General Andrew Lewis. The frontier militia called out by the royal governor defeated a confederation of Indians on the Kanawha River at the place where this river empties into the Ohio River. In January, 1775, Tipton was an organizer of the First Independent Company of Dunmore, a militia organized by the Dunmore Committee of Safety and Correspondence. First a patriot, next a minute man, on April 23rd, 1776; John Tipton became a rebel to the English Crown. He was elected to represent Dunmore County at the Virginia Convention in Williamsburg. This most significant of Virginia Conventions adopted a Declaration of Rights on June 12th and a constitution for Virginia on June 29th. Independence for the State of Virginia had been declared! Following the Virginia Convention, Tipton was elected to the House of Delegates for the next four years where he served on Committees with leading Virginia patriots Patrick Henry, George Mason and James Madison. Benjamin Harrison, father of President William Henry Harrison was a Delegate. Tipton served on Committees with the prominent men of the Shenandoah Valley: Andrew Lewis, Isaac Zane and Arthur Campbell. During these years, he served his county, renamed Shenandoah in 1777, as Justice of the Peace appointed by Governor Patrick Henry who also appointed Tipton County Sheriff in 1778 and recruiting officer for the Virginia Continental Line in 1779. In 1780, Governor Thomas Jefferson appointed him Commissioner of the Provision Law. Tipton was County Lieutenant for Shenandoah. The County Lieutenant was the principal military officer in a Virginia County and thus a Colonel of militia. It was from this time forward that he was referred to as Colonel. By 1782, Colonel Tipton had endured several tragedies in his life. In 1776, Mary died in child birth with Jonathan. While serving with George Rogers Clark in the Ohio Country, son Abraham, a Captain, was killed by Indians on Beargrass Creek at the Falls of the Ohio, present-day Louisville, Kentucky. His son William was badly wounded fighting at the siege of Savannah under General Isaac Huger. In 1777, he married Martha Denton Moore, the widow of Dr. James Moore and member of a large, prosperous Valley family. The Dentons and John Tipton had a close relationship during his years in the Shenandoah. It was from Samuel Denton that
Veterans Day – A Tribute to the Military Service of our Ancestors RESEARCH DRAFT 2013
John bought his farm on the seven bends. In 1781, Martha gave birth to a son who was named Abraham to honor the brother who fell in the Ohio country. With the birth of Abraham, Tipton had fathered ten sons. In 1783, after the American Revolution was won, Colonel John Tipton moved to the Watauga Settlements on the Western Waters in what is now East Tennessee. His brothers Jonathan and Joseph had already moved to the area accompanied by their father, Jonathan, who was over seventy-five years of age. Brother Jonathan is a signer of the Watauga settlers’ petition to North Carolina of 1776 and Joseph is on the 1778 Watauga tax lists. John’s brother Edward had moved to Pennsylvania while his brother William stayed in the Shenandoah Valley. Prior to Tennessee statehood in 1796, East Tennessee was part of the colony, then state, of North Carolina. Communication between the area and the state was very difficult because of the high mountains in between and the lack of roads for travel. It was not until the 1790’s that a wagon road connected East Tennessee to Asheville. The majority of settlers on the western waters was from Virginia and had travelled down the Shenandoah Valley to get there. Many of the settlers were Scotch-Irish but there were English, German and Huguenots. Tipton brought with him considerable skills and experience as a judge, legislator, and public official. He had a steady and prominent part in bringing democratic government to his country. His life included first hand experience drafting a resolution of resistance to tyranny, a declaration of rights and a constitution for the neighbors who were his constituency, his state and his country. He had been bold and fearless as a patriot. As before, Tipton had an eye for choice farmland. On May 15th, 1784 he purchased 100 acres between Sinking Creek and Buffalo Creek from Samuel Henry. In addition to being very fertile, the land was along an ancient buffalo trail with a bold spring and sheltering cave. In 1673, the first Englishmen to visit Tennessee; James Needham and Arthur Gabriel; camped at the site and later Daniel Boone made the cave his campground while hunting and exploring. Tipton built his home on this land. General Thomas Love, friend and ally, described the house as a “large size house, some 25 x 30 feet of hewed logs – a story and a half – no windows below – two or three window holes, round, in each gable and above – a door in front”. Post-Revolutionary War times were confusing and trying times in East Tennessee, North Carolina and all the former colonies. In every state, the economy was depressed and the governments were struggling with massive war debt. North Carolina had ceded her western territory, including East Tennessee, to the Confederation government and then rescinded the cession. North Carolina’s action was distressing to the Watauga settlers causing them to feel without a government and abandoned by the state. As was common, a public meeting was held in August, 1784 at Jonesboro to consider the question of government in the Watauga area. Given his experience and proven leadership, Colonel Tipton was depended upon by his neighbors almost as soon as he arrived. Records are incomplete, but Tipton was a “delegate” to the State of Franklin Convention held in mid-December, 1784. Here, a resolution passed 28-15 declaring independence from North Carolina and statehood for Franklin. Both Tipton and his brother Joseph voted against the resolution. In November, 1785, he was at the State of Franklin constitutional convention held in Greenville and was associated with a constitution which was very liberal for its day authored by Reverend Samuel Houston, uncle of the future Tennessee statesman. This constitution was defeated. Existing records indicate John Tipton and eighteen other men were in favor of this democratic constitution. John Tipton was an opponent of the right of the State of Franklin to exist. He was not alone among notable citizens of the area. The most respected man of his day, Evan Shelby, never supported Franklin and served as Brigadier General of Militia for North Carolina during a period of Franklin’s existence. Colonel Robert Love and his brothers, members of a prominent family, were opposed to Franklin. General Joseph Martin was opposed to the State of Franklin. Many future legislators voted against independence as had Tipton. North Carolina considered the movement a rebellion and its leaders as traitors. The Confederation government in New York gave it no countenance. Even Georgia, which planned military campaigns with the Franks, was careful in its correspondence to avoid addressing a state or independent government. History has yet to decide if the State of Franklin was the spontaneous act of self-reliant, independent settlers originating a western democracy; the conspiracy of self-seeking land speculators; or a separatists’ movement which resented the subordination of its
Veterans Day – A Tribute to the Military Service of our Ancestors RESEARCH DRAFT 2013
interests to those of Carolinians in the East. There is no question that land speculation was rife in the west and that some of Franklin’s leaders were among the speculators. Colonel John Tipton had the experience to foresee whether or not the counties involved were prepared for self-government. He would have been offended by the land speculation schemes which had not taken place in Virginia and he was an official of the State of North Carolina which turned to him to oppose the movement. He may have been influenced at the Greeneville Convention when he saw that a more democratic self-government was not the intent of the Franklin leadership. For all intents and purposes, the State of Franklin ceased to exist on February 29th, 1788. Frank Governor John Sevier attacked Tipton and some North Carolina supporters at Tipton’s home. Sevier and his men were routed. Sevier submitted to the laws of the mother state, North Carolina, after what history refers to as The Battle of the Lost State of Franklin. The State of Tennessee is indebted to Colonel John Tipton for his unflagging opposition to the State of Franklin and his ability to defeat the movement. Franklin was a convoluted “state” which brought the counties involved into conflict with federal policy, the mother state, the State of Virginia and the Indians on the frontier in addition to strife and violence in the counties themselves. Because Franklin was defeated, Tennessee moved forward to statehood in an orderly and straightforward manner countenanced by all of the United States. If Tipton’s decisions regarding Franklin needed any vindication, such was clearly given in March, 1788 when he was elected a delegate to the Hillsboro Convention at which North Carolina considered ratification of the proposed federal constitution creating the United States. Tipton, an anti-federalist much influenced by his friend Thomas Jefferson, voted with the majority to not ratify the constitution. The over-riding objection was the fact that the constitution did not contain a Bill of Rights protecting the citizens. Once again in his life, Colonel John Tipton stood firmly for democratic, representative government. In August, 1788, he was elected to represent Washington County as Senator in the North Carolina Legislature. He had served in the Legislature in 1786, as a court clerk for the state and been appointed a Colonel of militia under Brigadier General Evan Shelby. By 1789, the voters of North Carolina came to favor the federalists and Tipton was among the anti-federalists no longer in the Assembly. Here ended his service to the State of North Carolina. Colonel John was a big, powerful man who stood six feet tall and had been a famed boxer in his youth. With dark hair and dark eyes, he had a ruddy complexion sustaining his English ancestry; he was described as “spare” in his youth and tended to “corpulence” in old age. He was the type of man that did the work with his own hands even though his prosperity afforded him servants and slave labor. Some stories about his temperament are legend. Sometime during the upheavals of the State of Franklin, it is said that a Tipton in his mid-fifties bested a younger John Sevier in a fight begun when Sevier struck Tipton with a cane. At a more advanced age, he is reputed to have ridden his horse from Knoxville to his home near Jonesboro in one day, a distance of one hundred miles. His son, Jonathan said his father was honorable and kind, determined when opposed but predominately benevolent and merciful. Tipton seems to have been circumspect where Native Americans were concerned. Two of his sons, his father-in-law and his cousin Joshua were killed by Indians yet he displayed no vendetta. His one documented foray against the Indians was when he captained a company of men at the Battle of Point Pleasant during Lord Dunmore’s War in 1774. He was a slave owner. A Shenandoah County census states he had four slaves and he gifted a slave to the widow of a man killed at the Battle of Franklin in 1788. Thus, he clearly considered his slaves his property. The 1790’s visited more sadness on the life of Colonel John Tipton. His son Jacob, born in 1765 in the Shenandoah Valley, was killed on November 4th, 1791 at St. Clair’s Defeat by Indians in the Northwest Territory. In 1823, Jacob’s son, General Jacob Tipton, was to name the West Tennessee County of Tipton in honor of his fallen father. Then in 1794, Martha died after seventeen years of marriage. Martha was buried in a family cemetery on the Tipton farm below Buffalo Mountain where they had lived for a decade. In 1789, North Carolina ratified the United States constitution and became a member of the Union. The state again, and this time permanently, ceded her territory west of the Alleghany Mountain watershed to the federal government as of February 25th, 1790. On May 26th, the federal government created the Territory of the United States South of the River Ohio which contained
Veterans Day – A Tribute to the Military Service of our Ancestors RESEARCH DRAFT 2013
the land that would become the State of Tennessee. The Territory was more simply referred to as the Southwest Territory and use of the name Tennessee became common. Always a public servant, Tipton was elected to the unicameral legislature of the Southwest Territory. When it convened in August, 1794, his legislative peers turned to him to serve on a Committee to make provisions for the poor and to Chair the Committee for Petitions and Grievances, an important legislative function. He served on this Committee with James White, founder of Knoxville, and William Cocke, an official of the defunct State of Franklin. On August 30th, the legislature passed a bill creating a university in Greene County which made education a territorial priority. John Tipton was certainly one of the very few of these legislators who had been on a university campus as he had visited the College of William and Mary so many years before in Williamsburg. Tipton served as one of the founding Trustees of the university, Washington College Academy. Relying on the experience of Tipton with constitutional documents, the legislators of the Southwest Territory appointed him to a Committee to write a constitution for the State of Tennessee. It was determined that the territory; with a population of 77,262; was ready to apply for statehood. The dream of the East Tennesseans was coming true: statehood for the land from the Watauga to the Mississippi River! The constitution of Tennessee drafted by this Committee, which convened on January 11th, 1796, was a very democratic document eliminating property qualifications for voters and providing the governor be elected by the electorate, not the legislature. Thomas Jefferson deemed the Tennessee constitution “the least imperfect and most republican of all”. It was on the Constitutional Committee, if not before, that Colonel John Tipton made the acquaintance of Andrew Jackson. Tipton and Jackson had several things in common in addition to being dedicated public servants. They both loved race horses and each had a horse descended from the most famous bloodline in America, that of the English thoroughbred, Diomed. Tipton was known for his racing stock and to have the fastest horses in East Tennessee. Don Quixote and Tipton’s Irish Grey were legendary racers. Tipton and Jackson also shared an antipathy for John Sevier, although Jackson’s feud was more vociferous. During 1795 and 1796, Frenchman Andre Michaux was a guest in the home of Tipton. Michaux was the most famous botanist in continental Europe and he was sent to America by the French government to study the flora of North America. In ’95, he was headed west to study the plant life of Tennessee; on his return in ’96, he revisited Tipton’s beautiful plantation. He must have found both hospitality and a fascinating plant life as this was Michaux’s only repeat visit with a Tennessean. It is possible Thomas Jefferson wrote an introduction to Tipton for the botanist because Jefferson did so with other friends. The culmination of a long and admirable career of service to his neighbors was Colonel John Tipton’s election from Washington County to the Senate of the inaugural Tennessee Assembly. He served in this capacity for four years retiring from an active political life in 1799. His official career spanned at least twenty-seven years service to the Crown Colony of Virginia, the State of Virginia, the State of North Carolina, the State of Tennessee and the United States of America. In 1803, Colonel John became very active in support of Andrew Jackson when Jackson worked to prove the land fraud accusations against John Sevier, then Governor of Tennessee. Tipton sponsored a petition in East Tennessee against Sevier which garnered support for Jackson in Sevier’s stronghold neighborhood. The petition had over one hundred signatures and represented an embarrassment for Sevier. Tipton’s sons, Samuel and John, brought the land fraud accusations to the floor of the Tennessee House of Representatives. Colonel John Tipton spent the remaining fourteen years of his life on his plantation at the foot of Buffalo Mountain. He died in August, 1813 at the age of 83. His home is now a Tennessee State Historic Site, the Tipton-Haynes Homesite. Judge Samuel C. Williams, Chairman of the State Historical Commission, exclaimed in 1945 when the state acquired the property that “no other site in Tennessee compares with this in its historic interest”. According to the Reverend Ervin Charles Tipton in his book We Tiptons and Our Kin, the Colonel’s son John received a letter of condolences from Thomas Jefferson. President Jefferson said “Colonel John Tipton was a man of strong conviction and loyal determination. He was endowed with a high order of intellect. He possessed a high sense of honor. He was a personification of loyalty to the State and Country.” This statement is found in a Bible owned by Abraham Butler Tipton, grandson of the Colonel and son of John. In 1948, the Bible was in the possession of H. Hord Tipton of Church Hill, Tennessee.”
Veterans Day – A Tribute to the Military Service of our Ancestors RESEARCH DRAFT 2013
THE WOODSTOCK RESOLUTIONS 1774 “At a Meeting of the Freeholders and other Inhabitants of the County of Dunmore, held at the town of Woodstock, the 16th day of June, 1774, to consider the best mode to be fallen upon to secure their liberties and properties; and also to prevent the dangerous tendency of an Act of Parliament, passed in the fourteenth year of his present Majesty’s reign, entitled, “An Act to discontinue in such manner and for such time as is therein mentioned the landing and discharging, lading or shipping of goods, wares, and merchandise, at the town and within the harbor of Boston, in the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, in North America,” evidently has to invade and deprive us of the same. 1st: That we will always cheerfully pay due submission to such Acts of Government, as his Majesty has a right, by law, to exercise over his subjects, as Sovereign to the British Dominions, and to such only. 2nd: That it is the inherent right of British subjects to be governed and taxed by Representatives chosen by themselves only; and that every Act of the British Parliament respecting the internal policy of North America; is a dangerous and unconstitutional invasion of our rights and privileges. 3rd: That the Act of Parliament above mentioned, is not only itself repugnant to the fundamental laws of natural justice, in condemning persons for supposed crime, unheard; but, also, a despotic exertion of unconstitutional power, calculated to enslave a free and loyal people. 4th: That the enforcing the execution of the said Act of Parliament by a military power, will have a necessary tendency to raise a civil war, thereby dissolving that union which has so long happily subsisted between the mother country and her Colonies; and that we will most heartily and unanimously concur with our suffering brethren of Boston, and every other part of North America, that may be the immediate victims of tyranny, in promoting all proper measures to avert such dreadful calamities; to procure a redress of our grievances, and to secure our common liberties. 5th: It is the unanimous opinion of this meeting, that a joint resolution of all the Colonies, to stop all importations from Great Britain, and exportations to it, till the said Act be repealed, will prove the salvation of North America and her liberties; on the other hand, if they continue their imports and exports, there is the greatest reason to fear that power and the odious oppression will rise triumphant over right, justice, social happiness, and freedom. 6th: That The East India Company, those servile tools of arbitrary power, have justly forfeited the esteem and regard of all honest men; and that the better to manifest our abhorrence of such abject compliances with the will of a venal Ministry, in ministering all in their power an increase of the fund of peculation, we will not purchase tea, or any other kind of East India commodities, either imported now, or hereafter to be imported, except saltpeter, spices, and medicinal drugs. 7th: That it is the opinion of this meeting, that Committees ought to be appointed for the purpose of effecting a general Association, that the same measures may be pursued through the whole Continent; that the Committees ought to correspond with each other, and to meet at such places and times as shall be agreed, in order to form such general Association; and that when the same shall be formed and agreed on by the several Committees, we will strictly adhere to, and till the general sense of the Continent shall be known, we do pledge ourselves to each other, and to our country, that we will inviolably adhere to the vote of this day. Voted, That the Reverend Peter Mecklenberg, Francis Slaughter, Abraham Bird, Taverner Beale, John Tipton, and Abraham Bowman, be appointed a Committee for the purpose aforesaid; and that they or any three of them are hereby fully empowered to act.”
COXSACKIE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 1775 Donated by the Durham Center Museum Written by Olive N. Woodworth “On May 17, 1775, more than a year before the Declaration of Independence was presented in Philadelphia; the inhabitants of Coxsackie signed a Declaration of Independence of their own. The faded yellow parchment, found in an Albany attic some years ago, bears the names of 225 signers, most of them Dutch names of freeholders from the Coxsackie District of the Colony of New York.”
Veterans Day – A Tribute to the Military Service of our Ancestors RESEARCH DRAFT 2013
“Within a month after this historic event on the Hudson, the Battles of Concord and Lexington had been fought, the British force had attacked Bunker Hill, and Washington had been summoned to lead the American army surrounding Boston. Much of the excitement of the times can be felt when this document is read; and history records that the revolutionary fever reached a peak thirteen months later, at Philadelphia, the Declaration of Independence was signed by all the colonies. The Coxsackie Declaration was discovered by Mr. John M. Clark, then president of the Albany Institute and History and Art Society, who presented it to the Institution, where it remains. The document was pronounced authentic by Dr. Sullivan and Dr. Wyer, who served, respectively, as State Historian and State Librarian at that time, and by the State Archivist. It was displayed among other selected material on the New York Freedom Train when it toured the State. Over the years, the writing on the document, faded and somewhat illegible; of the 225 signatures, only 211 are decipherable and presumed accurate. Some of the patriots, unable to write their names, signed with an "+”. The first signer, John (Johannes) Schuneman, was undoubtedly the fighting "Dutch Dominie of the Catskills", for the letters V.D.S., meaning Verbum Dei Servus (Minister of the Word of God) appear after his name. And there is enough authentic data on the Dominie to provide assurance that he drew up the Declaration personally.” Anthony Van Bergen, the eighth signer, and Henry Van Bergen, the fourth signer, were Colonel and captain, respectively, of the Coxsackie militia during the Revolution.
The Declaration
“Persuaded that the Salvation of the Rights and Liberties of America, depends, under God, on the firm union of its Inhabitants, in a vigorous prosecution of the Measures necessary for its Safety, and convinced of the Necessity of preventing the Anarchy and confusion which attend the Dissolution of the Powers of Government: THAT the Freeholders and Inhabitants of Coxsackie District, in the County of Albany, being greatly alarmed at the avowed Design of the Ministry to raise a Revenue in America, are shocked by the bloody Scene acting in the Massachusetts Bay; Do in the most solemn manner, resolve never to become Slaves; and do also associate under the Ties of Religion, Honor and Love of our Country to adopt and endeavor to carry into Execution whatever Measures may be rendered by our Continental Congress, or resolved upon by our Provincial Convention for the purpose of preserving our Constitution and opposing the Execution of several arbitrary and oppressive Acts of the British Parliament, until a reconciliation between Great Britain and America or constitutional principles (which we most ardently desire) can be obtained; and that we will, in all Things, follow the advice of our general Committee, respecting the purpose aforesaid, the preservation of Peace and good Order, and the Safety of Individuals and private property.” Dated at Coxsackie the Seventeenth of May in the Year of our Lord, One Thousand seven hundred and seventy five. (signed by 225 citizens of Coxsackie) Geoffrey Brandow was a signer to this document. He is listed in the Hall Family Tree as my 11th great grand uncle.
Veterans Day – A Tribute to the Military Service of our Ancestors RESEARCH DRAFT 2013
“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.
This sentence has been called "one of the best-known sentences in the English language"[2] and "the
most potent and consequential words in American history".[3]
After finalizing the text on July 4, Congress issued the Declaration of Independence in several forms. It
was initially published as a printed broadside that was widely distributed and read to the public. The
most famous version of the Declaration, a signed copy that is usually regarded as the Declaration of
Independence, is on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Although the wording of the
Declaration was approved on July 4, the date of its signing has been disputed. Most historians have
concluded that it was signed nearly a month after its adoption, on August 2, 1776, and not on July 4 as is
commonly believed.” The sources and interpretation of the Declaration have been the subject of much
scholarly inquiry.
“The famous wording of the Declaration has often been invoked to protect the rights of individuals and marginalized groups, and has come to represent for many people a moral standard for which the United States should strive. This view greatly influenced Abraham Lincoln, who considered the Declaration to be the foundation of his political philosophy,[4] and who promoted the idea that the Declaration is a statement of principles through which the United States Constitution should be interpreted. Annotated Text of the Declaration of Independence The first sentence of the Declaration asserts as a matter of Natural law the ability of a people to assume political independence, and acknowledges that the grounds for such independence must be reasonable, and therefore explicable, and ought to be explained. 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. The next section, the famous preamble, includes the ideas and ideals that were principles of the Declaration. It is also an assertion of what is known as the "right of revolution": that is, people have certain rights, and when a government violates these rights, the people have the right to "alter or abolish" that government.[71] 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,[72] 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.
The next section is a list of charges against King George III, which aim to demonstrate that he has violated the colonists' rights and is therefore unfit to be their ruler: 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
Veterans Day – A Tribute to the Military Service of our Ancestors RESEARCH DRAFT 2013
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 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 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.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their
salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass [sic] 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:
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:
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
Veterans Day – A Tribute to the Military Service of our Ancestors RESEARCH DRAFT 2013
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring 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:
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 complete the works of death, desolation and
tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & 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 endeavored 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.”
“Many Americans still felt a kinship with the people of Great Britain, and had appealed in vain to the prominent among them, as well as to Parliament, to convince the King to relax his more objectionable policies toward the colonies. The next section represents disappointment that these attempts had been unsuccessful.” 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. “In the final section, the signers assert that there exist conditions under which people must change their government, that the British have produced such conditions, and by necessity the colonies must throw off political ties with the British Crown and become independent states. The conclusion incorporates language from Lee's resolution of independence that had been passed on July 2.” 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
Veterans Day – A Tribute to the Military Service of our Ancestors RESEARCH DRAFT 2013
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. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence#Drafts_and_Fair_Copy
Ancestral signers of this Declaration.
William Whipple (1730-1785)
New Hampshire Representative
A merchant and Brigadier General in the New Hampshire Militia, William Whipple Jr. signed the
Declaration of Independence as a representative of New Hampshire.
Relationship: 4th Cousin
Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832)
Maryland Representative
Charles Carroll was the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. His signature
reads "Charles Carroll of Carrollton", so he is widely known as such.
Relationship: 4th Cousin 3 times removed
Veterans Day – A Tribute to the Military Service of our Ancestors RESEARCH DRAFT 2013