Declaration of Independence

By Deborah Jurist, President of the Groton Historical Society

John Trumbull’s painting depicts the committee presenting the draft of the Declaration of Independence to the Continental Congress. Public domain/Architect of the Capitol.

This year we are celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, on July 4, 1776. There will be loads of festivities all year long….One of the benefits to us….are cupcakes! 

But as with most of the events we celebrate,  origin stories get simplified to a point that we often lose the real basis for the hoopla. 

Today the Groton Historical Society will obviously not cover the history in depth, but we intend to make a significant scratch on the surface and read the meat of the Declaration itself.  There are copies of the full text here if you want one.  

Why DO we celebrate July 4, 1776 as the birthday of the United States?

The Declaration of Independence doesn’t seem to signify the birth of our nation to me, it signifies the beginning of a WAR that led to the birth of our nation.

The War lasted 8 years 4 months and 15 days and ended on May 12, 1784 after the deaths of more than 25,000 Patriots and 43,000 British soldiers. It occurred during a worldwide epidemic of smallpox which caused the deaths of 130,000 people in the colonies, in fact most of the troops on both sides died of small pox, and the number would have been even higher if George Washington had not required his troops to be inoculated in a move that was bold, but not unprecedented, the British too were inoculated. It is commonly believed we would have lost the war completely if he hadn’t done that because we were so outnumbered.

 The Declaration came in the stage of birth when labour begins and there is no turning back…. The messy part was only just beginning. 

It was a war about ending tyranny and instituting self government, which had never EVER happened before……and the impetus was taxes. 

What we call The French and Indian War, the period from 1754 to 1763,  was actually part of a World War at the time, in which Britain, France, and Spain, were fighting each other over the land on the American continent where the Indians lived. 

 It caused a huge debt for the British Government and they were looking for ways to raise revenue. They decided that the colonies should pay more for their defense, even though we were paying taxes already. Since we had no representatives in the English Government, we had NO say. So, the British imposed a new tax, it was called the Stamp Tax, and it was like a sales tax, so everyone felt it. Everything affected by the tax required a stamp to be affixed to it, like a stamp on a letter. There was a tax on paper and pencils for instance, and of course, tea. This is “Taxation without Representation” It was what we would call a “tipping point” now.

One comment before we  go ahead and start on the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration refers to the rights of  “men” and it is generally assumed that it means white men who owned property, not laborers, or teachers, or preachers who did not own land, and for the most part this is true. However, voting was controlled by the individual colonies,  we weren’t even the United States at that time. 

New Jersey allowed widows and unmarried white women of property to vote, and when Vermont became a state in 1791, the vote was given to ALL men regardless of color or property ownership.

Groton, by the way, was not even chartered until 1789. However, there were 15 Patriots amongst our early settlers who came here from Maine and Massachusetts.. Three of them were Batchelders! Four of them are buried in Groton: Jeremiah Batchelder, Dominicus Gray, Jesse Heath and Edmund Welch…

You can find more information about this in Mr. Glover’s Groton, page 223, 224

The Declaration of Independence 

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.

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.

These are grievances:

He has refused his Assent to Laws, 

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws 

He has refused to pass other Laws 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, 

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; 

He has endeavoured to prevent the population to grow in these States; by obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; 

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice,

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, 

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people,

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 suspending our own Legislatures, 

He has abdicated Government, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, 

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.

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 Declaration of Independence of 1776 was in many ways a political message to Revolutionaries in the North American colonies and their potential allies in Europe.

But….. somewhat unexpectedly, it also became the center of rallying cries for equality and liberty from its earliest moments, and it has continued to do so to this day.