The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas |
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The Declaration of Independence A Study In The History of Political Ideas Carl Becker Limited preview - 2011 |
The Declaration of Independence A Study In The History of Political Ideas Carl Becker Limited preview - 2011 |
Common terms and phrases
abolishing actual pre-social allegiance American authority Britain British empire British Parliament British subjects candid world civil colonies colonists Committee of Five common Congress consent constitution copy reads corrected Journal custom Declaration of Independence derive doctrine eighteenth century English equal established fact fact of murder fair copy formulated foundation France Franklin and Adams God's grievances happiness hath human Ibid ideas inalienable Jefferson Jephthah John Adams John Locke jurisdiction justify king laration law of nature law of reason Lee copy legislative legislature liament liberty lives Locke says Locke's mankind measure ment mind natural law natural rights Newton paragraph phrase positive law possessions principles purpose rational Revolution rights of British Rough Draft rough Journal Rousseau Rufus Choate rule sacred seemed sense slavery social society Stamp Act submitted suppose taxes theory things Thomas Jefferson thought tion Townshend Act truth tyranny universe usurpations writing wrote
Popular passages
Page 141 - 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 meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
Page 145 - He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN King of Great Britain.
Page 14 - 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.
Page 66 - The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty and puts on the bonds of civil society is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties and a greater security against any that are not of it.
Page 139 - 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.
Page 143 - For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us...
Page 13 - 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...
Page 63 - ... a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature; without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.
Page 145 - And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people...
Page 156 - 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...