The Forgotten Founding Document

Over the decades I have known him, Robert Greenslade has done some of the best instructional  reserch on Constitutional issues available on the Internet. Here is his latest - and timely - piece...BW

Every July 4th, America celebrates the signing of the document commonly known as the Declaration of Independence. However, there is another document, adopted a year earlier that, in my opinion, helped lay the foundation for the Declaration of Independence. This document, which contains some of the most moving words ever spoken by Founders, needs to be read and celebrated by every American who still values liberty.

On July 6th, 1775, the Continental Congress adopted: A Declaration by the Representatives of the United Colonies of North-America, Now Met in Congress at Philadelphia, Setting Forth the Causes and Necessity of Their Taking Up Arms.

The following was written by Thomas Jefferson:

“We are reduced to the alternative of chusing [sic] an unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers, or resistance by force.—The latter is our choice—We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery.—Honour, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them, if we basely entail hereditary bondage upon them.

Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. Our internal resources are great, and, if necessary, foreign assistance is undoubtedly attainable… With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.”

During the debates in the Virginia Ratifying Convention of 1788, Patrick Henry stated:

“We are told…that our own representatives-Congress-will not exercise their powers oppressively; that we shall not enslave ourselves… Who has enslaved France, Spain, Germany, Turkey, and the other countries that groan under tyranny? They have been enslaved by the hands of their own people. If it be so in America, it will be only as it has been every where else.”

Henry was a prophet. Once again government tyranny has raised its ugly head. The people of these united States are being forced to submit to the unconstitutional dictates of judges, politicians, bureaucrats and other government reprobates who are more oppressive than King George.

In an article entitled: Historical fact: Independence Day is a celebration of freedom from government tyranny, Mike Adams wrote:

“[I]f you celebrate Independence Day in America, you are celebrating the result of a violent revolutionary war against a tyrannical government whose crimes against the People have all been re-created right here at home, via the American government!

Where we once fought for independence, we now lay down and surrender our freedoms. The masses of sheeple have forgotten what it means to live free, and they have allowed a tyrannical government to treat them with the same disdain that the British empire once dealt out as routine.”

If Americans were a sane people who valued liberty more than their new iphone, they would rise-up and drag these arrogant bastards into the public square and place them in chains for their lies, thefts and usurpations.

The question we need to ask this week as the beacon of liberty glows dimmer by the day is: Are we going to continue to surrender the freedoms our Creator and gallant ancestors bestowed upon us and live as slaves to government or are we going to throw-off the shackles and resist the usurpations?

If we do not choose the later, there will come a time in the not to distant future when we are faced with the same choice the Founders had to make on July 6, 1775.

By Robert Greenslade

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