The Declaration of Independence and Common-Sense

Our time being the United States of American without British rule has been two hundred, forty-two years, two months and nine day to be exact. Since that amount of time The United States fought for its own Independence that would significantly change our lives. Tragically speaking since our birth into something other than a country ruled by another country we have only had twenty years of peace, all two hundred and twenty-two years we the people have been fighting in a constant war that seems to never end.

The documents presented in the commonality and the difference faced judgement once providing us motive from British rule only to seek a fraction of justice being held for peace.

Keywords:  Declaration of Independence vs. Common Sense

Common and Difference Between the Declaration of Independence and Common-Sense Pamphlet

Being both insured by the knowledge and wisdom to fight for the chance of a better place to raise a lifetime of generations of family, we seemed to require the knowledge into why we the people needed to be free, yet we as our country grew the less civilized.

We the People fought for our Independence from Britain Rule and Britain Laws, yet we used their systems to set up our own country. Ironic how we the people in fact needed British rule to design our country yet at this day of era, it doesn’t provide. “I fought by nation, I understood by faith, sat before god, by country, that each day here forth a head is practiced with patients and designed by honesty, yet not shielded by the truth, this is the way we the people in the country of peace and of rights, we stand never forgetting whom we are and whom we will always be a free nation”. (Nicole Sara Scharaga) (Posted on Facebook 9/11/2018) Our independence was a must yet we at this day in age have no comprehension of what it means to be free!

Declaration of Independence

The writing of the Declaration of Independence from England took place in Philadelphia in the Summer of 1776. Of the thirteen colonies in the New World had sent members to collaborate the meaning and the truth behind the declaration. It was at this time the colonies would join forces to Unite as one to destroy the relationship between us and England once and for all.

Five members, with significant influence among the people joined together to collaborate and design the United States most important Document known as the Declaration of Independence. The member to whom collaborated were Benjamin Franklin (polymath a Founding Fathers of the United States. He also was an author, political theorist, politician, freemason, inventor, statesman, and diplomat) John Adams (lawyer, diplomat, political theorist, statesman and Founding Father, Vice President (1789-1797) second President (1797-1801)), Thomas Jefferson (Founding Father third president 1801 to 1809), Robert Livingston (lawyer, politician, diplomat from New York, a Founding Father. “The Chancellor” held for Twenty-five years.). and Roger Sherman (statesman and lawyer, Founding Father)

The United States was faced with multiple challenges during the times of first starting out, we were at a constant stand still with Great Britain for an issue of “no taxation without representation.” It was believed among the colonist that Britain would sustain their rights, but in fact didn’t, they were meant to follow the law.

The Lee Resolution, or (“The Resolution for Independence”) was the ceremonial proclamation passed by the Second Continental Congress on July 2, 1776, to which stated that The United States established its own country united by one Independent from British rule. which declared the establishment of a new country of United Colonies as independent from the British Empire, creating what became the United States of America. News of this act was published that evening in the Pennsylvania newspapers. This action was the Declaration of Independence, approved two days later July 4, 1776. In which this is the reason we commemorate July 4th as our Independence Day!

The Declaration of Independence, Reads as followed. Along with the fifty-six John Hancock as well.

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 affect 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 meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored 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 harass 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 benefit 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 endeavored 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 humblest 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 British 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.”

New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts: John Hancock, 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 York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

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

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

North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Common-Sense Pamphlet1

The Common-Sense pamphlet was written by Thomas Paine in 1775-76, it was a source of encouraging information regarding our independence from Britain. The pamphlet was written with influence and purpose to separate ourselves from a king’s rule. It was in such a way that the colonist believed the pamphlet was a source of enlightenment from god speaking to them in a way to push them to fight. In January 10, 1776, the pamphlet was distributed widely and read aloud in watering hole and converging places. The information was in fact published anonymously only for a short time. It was the talk of the town and immediately became a sensation at the start of the Independent War.

The Common-Sense Pamphlet was purchased by two point five million people. It has been the most thought out book since its publication and still to this day many people have inquired on getting this book. In 1790 it was translated in to different tongues across the world. (I am not adding the thirty- three paged book to the story I have added the first hafe!)

“Common Sense by Thomas Paine

Introduction

PERHAPS the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

As a long and violent abuse of power is generally the means of calling the right of it in question, (and in matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry,) and as the king of England hath undertaken in his own right, to support the parliament in what he calls theirs, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpations of either.

In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided everything which is personal among us. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise and the worthy need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious or unfriendly, will cease of themselves, unless too much pains is bestowed upon their conversion.

The cause of America is, in a great measure, the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances have, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which, their affections are interested. The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from the face of the earth, is the concern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feeling; of which class, regardless of party censure, is THE AUTHOR. Philadelphia, Feb. 14, 1776.”

Difference and Similar

The only extremely difference between these two documents is the number of pages one has verse the other one. Common Sense is thirty-three pages long and the Declaration of Independence is one page.  One is extremely detailed as the other one is not. But they are both know for delivering us from the rule of Britain.

Conclusion

I really didn’t know much about the Common-Sense Pamphlet, so I bought it at the store. They didn’t cover, the common-sense pamphlet in Jr high or high school. I am extremely impressed by being surprised by the country I love.  We beat one British Rule what makes people believe that we will not always come out on top. I am proud to be an American.

References

1. George Billie’s American Constitutionalism Heard Round the World, 1776-1989 (2011) p 17.
2. Lucas, Stephen E. “The Stylistic Artistry of the Declaration of Independence”. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved July 4, 2012.
3. “Index of Signers by State”. ushistory.org Independence Hall Association in Philadelphia. Retrieved October 12, 2006.
4. “TO HENRY LEE Thomas Jefferson The Works, vol. 12 (Correspondence and Papers 1816-1826; 1905)”. The Online Library of Liberty. May 8, 1825. Retrieved March 8, 2008.
5. Malone, Jefferson the Virginian, 221; Maier, American Scripture, 125-26.
6. Maier, American Scripture, 126-28.
7. Maier, American Scripture, 5-“57.
8. Aldridge, A. Owen (1984), Thomas Paine’s American ideology, University of Delaware Press
9. Conway, Moncure Daniel (1893), The Life of Thomas Paine, Ch. VI.
10. Ferguson, Robert A. (2000), “The Commonalities of Common Sense.”, William & Mary Quarterly, 57 (3), pp. 465-504,
11. Foner, Eric (2004), Tom Paine and Revolutionary America
12. Gimbel, Richard (1956), A Bibliographical Check List of Common Sense, With an Account of Its Publication, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, Thomas Paine, “The [American] Crisis No. VII”, Pennsylvania Packet
13. Jordan, Winthrop D. (1973), “Familial Politics: Thomas Paine and the Killing of the King, 1776.”, Journal of American History, pp. 294-308,
14. Last Name, F. M. (Year). Article Title. Journal Title, Pages From – To.
15. Last Name, F. M. (Year). Book Title. City Name: Publisher Name.

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