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The
first prayer of Congress, offered by Rev. Duche in Carpenter’s Hall, Philadelphia
on September 7, 1774
Be
Thou present O God of Wisdom and direct the counsel of this Honorable Assembly;
enable them to settle all things on the best and surest foundations; that
the scene of blood may be speedily closed; that Order, Harmony and Peace
may be effectually restored, and the Truth and Justice, Religion and Piety,
prevail and flourish among the people. Preserve the health of their bodies,
and the vigor of their minds, shower down on them, and the millions they
here represent, temporal Blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in
this world, and crown them with everlasting Glory in the world to come.
All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy
Son and our Savior, Amen. |
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March 24, 2004
UNDER GOD: A NEED FOR
REVIEW OF THE UNITED STATES HISTORICAL ARCHIVES
By S.M.Apatow, Founder,
Humanitarian Resource Institute and the Interfaith News Network
As the Supreme
Court of the United States examines the words "Under God" in the Pledge
of Allegiance, the motto " In God We Trust" on every piece of United States
currency, clearly articulates the importance of divinity as the theme (that
by means of which a thing is done; means; instrument - Webster's Revised
Unabridged Dictionary) under which this nation exists.
In the Declaration
of Independence, we read:
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.
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 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
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:
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 & 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.
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.
Nor have We been wanting
in attentions to our Brittish 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 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 56 signatures on the
Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia: Button Gwinnett,
Lyman Hall, George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina: William Hooper,
Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge,
Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts: John Hancock
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William
Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard
Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis
Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
Column 4
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris,
Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith,
George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney,
George Read, Thomas McKean
Column 5
New York: William Floyd,
Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton,
John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett,
William Whipple
Massachusetts: Samuel Adams,
John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:, Stephen Hopkins,
William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman,
Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire: Matthew Thornton
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Every American citizen is
encouraged to conduct further research on "God" in U.S. history, through
the United States National Archives and Records Administration:
" The ties that bind the
lives of our people in one indissoluble union are perpetuated in the archives
of our government."
http://www.archives.gov/
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