The Daily Broadside

4th of July, 2021, 245 years

Posted on 07/04/2021 5.00 AM

JCM 7/3/2021 5:12:18 PM


Posted by: JCM

JCM 7/3/2021 5:14:22 PM
1
Declaration of Independence,.

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, 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.

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.

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton

 

North Carolina

William Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn

 

South Carolina

Edward Rutledge

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton

 

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

 

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

 

New York

William Floyd

Philip Livingston

Francis Lewis

Lewis Morris

 

New Jersey

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

Francis Hopkinson

John Hart

Abraham Clark

 

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

Occasional Reader 7/4/2021 7:11:11 AM
2

A very happy and solemn Independence Day to you all; yes, I know there’s something about contradiction there. May our republic be fully restored, and protected.

🇺🇸

buzzsawmonkey 7/4/2021 9:31:34 AM
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Ballad For Americans

I always listen to "Ballad For Americans" on the Fourth.  Yes, the lead voice in this cantata is Paul Robeson (communist), and the cantata itself was written by Leftists, but it is still powerful, moving, and patriotic---and if the wokies of today, if they even knew about it, would cancel it in a nanosecond.

@PBJ3 7/4/2021 10:06:44 AM
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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 3:

Nice ballad.




buzzsawmonkey 7/4/2021 10:32:51 AM
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Reply to @PBJ3 in 4:

"Ballad For Americans" came out in '37 or '39---I forget which---and became wildly popular.  It's interesting to see how many ways this piece, written and performed by the then-wokest of the woke, would be considered reactionary and cancel-worthy today. 

For instance, the line "Betsy Ross organized a sewing circle" (nice play on the circle of stars in the original flag, BTW) would be sexist and denigrating to women; praise of Jefferson as "a mighty fine man," with no mention of his slave holdings; favorable description of expansion "into the Western lands"; favorable treatment of Lincoln and emancipation; the "melting pot" description towards the end, etc. 

My favorite part---it gets me every time---is the part of the finale that begins, "Out of the cheating, out of the shouting, out of uncertainty and doubting, out of the murders and lynchings, out of the windbags, the patriotic spouting..." because it encompasses all of the chicanery and injustice but still claims we are better than that.  

@PBJ3 7/4/2021 10:46:42 AM
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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 5:

I hope the current "wokies" aren't reading this blog.

buzzsawmonkey 7/4/2021 11:06:52 AM
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Reply to @PBJ3 in 6:

The same team---Earl Robinson and I forget who else---later wrote the cantata "The Lonesome Train," about Lincoln's funeral train going from Washington, DC to Springfield, IL. 

It's nowhere near as good; it's about twice as long as "Ballad For Americans" and the lead voice is Burl Ives---whom I like, and whose voice suits the writing, but...it just doesn't quite get there.  Part of the problem is a sort of canonization of Lincoln as a sort of King Arthur or Elijah the Prophet wandering in mufti "among his people," which sort of alternates between silly and a little creepy.  Also, the communism sticks out just a little more obviously than in "Ballad."  

I'm not saying there aren't some moving moments, or that it's not interesting---it's very interesting---but mostly on the basis that you can't really appreciate the good stuff until you see how the bad stuff doesn't quite make it.


Occasional Reader 7/4/2021 11:31:40 AM
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Reply to @PBJ3 in 4:

Occasional Reader 7/4/2021 11:38:20 AM
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Whoops.  Stray post.

Anyway. I’ve had an almost excessively quiet holiday weekend, as I wait for my son‘s mom to drop him off early this evening.   She had him out in West Virginia for the last two nights and it looks like they had a grand time.  My only plan for the evening is to cook a hopefully delicious veal chop dinner for him and me, then proceed up to the rooftop of my building to watch the fireworks display with our neighbors. That’s it.



Occasional Reader 7/4/2021 1:08:00 PM
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Walking around my deep blue neighborhood on Independence Day, I see some houses displaying the American flag; more houses displaying rainbow flags and/or “black lives matter“ signs and/or other left-wing virtue signaling signs.

I see no overlap between those two groups of houses.

lucius septimius 7/4/2021 2:17:02 PM
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Reply to Occasional Reader in 10:

Meanwhile in Florida, I've seen American flags everywhere, as well as Trump flags and, on one very nice offshore fishing boat, a Desantis 2024 flag.

No Biden flags or BLM/Pantyfa signs.

Kosh's Shadow 7/4/2021 2:55:27 PM
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Reply to lucius septimius in 11:

Where I live, there are a few BLM signs. Most on a cheap apartment building, built years ago to house railroad workers.

A while ago, I saw a house with a Trump flag.

On one road, there is a BLM sign across from MA Supports Law Enforcement sign. I wonder how those neighbors get along?

Alice in Dairyland 7/4/2021 4:01:19 PM
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Where I live there, are no BLM signs.  Almost everyone flies the American flag on most days.  I see on the headlines now that the US flag no longer unites Americans.  It doesn't represent freedom to black people.  I beg to differ.  Have they ever stopped to consider, if there were no United States of America, the slave trade could/would still be flourishing across the entire world and be an accepted way of life?  What a bunch of ungrateful people we have in this country.
Kosh's Shadow 7/4/2021 4:14:02 PM
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Reply to Alice in Dairyland in 13:

And the blacks suck up to Arabs - WHO STILL HAVE BLACK SLAVES!


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