University of Virginia Library

6574. PEOPLE, English.—[continued].

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 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 strength of Great
Britain; that in constituting, indeed, our several
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 have
appealed to their native justice and magnanimity
as well as to the ties of our common
kindred to disavow these usurpations which
were likely to 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 elections,
reestablished 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 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,
to hold them as we hold the rest of mankind,
enemies in war, in peace, friends. We
might have been a free and a great people together;
but a communication of grandeur and
of freedom, it seems, is below their dignity.
Be it so, since they will have it. The road to
happiness and to glory is open to us, too, We
will tread it apart from them, and acquiesce
in the necessity which denounces our eternal
separation. [383] —
Declaration of Independence as Drawn by Jefferson.