A Modest Proposal...

…for preventing poor children from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick.

It is a melancholy experience to those who walk through the streets of our great cities, or travel through small rural towns, to see the streets, roads, and doorways crowded with beggars and prostitutes. Especially those of the female sex with three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants, who as they grow up either turn thieves for want of work, or sell themselves to the black market drug lords, or leave the country to go train with terrorists.

I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the nation a very great additional grievance, and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of society, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.

But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars, it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age who are born of parents who are as little able to support them without welfare, as those who demand our charity in the streets.

As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other thinkers, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation. A child just dropped from the mother’s belly may be supported by her milk for a solar year, with little other nourishment, at most not above the value of two thousand dollars, which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her occupation of begging or from welfare, and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall on the contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many thousands.

There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us! sacrificing the poor innocent babes I doubt more to avoid the expense than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.

Now, there are a about three hundred million souls in this country. Of those, there are about four point three million couples who breed each year. Now I subtract half of those couples who are able to maintain their own brood. Although, I admit that under the present distress of the nation the number is more likely even less than half, but the general figure being granted, there are two point one five million breeders in a given year. The question therefore is, how this number shall be reared and provided for, which, as I have already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture. They neither build houses, nor cultivate land. They can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing, till they arrive at six years old, except where they are of towardly parts, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers, as I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Brooklyn, who protested to me that he never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the country so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.

I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before fourteen years old is no salable commodity. And even when they come to this age they will not yield wages enough to account either to the parents or the state, the charge of nutriment and rags having been at least four times that value.

I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.

I have been assured by a very knowing African of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled. And I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragu.

I do therefore humbly offer it to public consideration that of the two million, one hundred and fifty thousand children already computed, one hundred and fifty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one-fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle or swine. And my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore one male will be sufficient to serve four females. Then now the remaining two million may, at a year old, be offered in the sale to the persons of quality and fortune through the kingdom. Always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends; and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.

I have reckoned upon a medium that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, increaseth to 28 pounds.

I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords and executives, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children.

Infant's flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in Summer, and a little before and after. The Census Bureau reports that August has more births than any other month, and of course there is the common knowledge that the poor people and inferior races are more prone to rutting during the cold weather months having nothing else better to do. This will have the collateral advantage of lessening the number of inferior peoples among us.

I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child to be about two thousand dollars per annum, rags included. And I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten thousand dollars for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend or his own family to dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his tenants. The mother will have eight thousand dollars net profit, and be fit for work till she produces another child.

Those who are more thrifty, as I must confess the times require, may flay the carcass. The skin of which, artificially dressed, will make admirable leather goods for wear by both ladies and fine gentlemen.

As to our city of New York, slaughterhouses may be appointed for this purpose in the most convenient parts of it, and butchers we may be assured will not be wanting. Although I rather recommend buying the children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife, as we do roasting pigs.

A very worthy person, a true lover of his country, and whose virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased in discoursing on this matter to offer a refinement upon my scheme. He said that many gentlemen of this country, having of late destroyed their deer, he conceived that the want of venison might be well supplied by the bodies of young lads and maidens, not exceeding fourteen years of age nor under twelve. So great a number of both sexes in every country being now ready to starve for want of work and service. These to be disposed of by their parents, if alive, or otherwise by their nearest relations. But with due deference to so excellent a friend and so deserving a patriot, I cannot be altogether in his sentiments. For as to the males, my African acquaintance assured me, from frequent experience, that their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our schoolboys by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable, and that to fatten them would not answer the charge. Then as to the females, it would, I think, with humble submission, be a loss to the public. Because they soon would become breeders themselves. And besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice, although indeed very unjustly, as a little bordering upon cruelty. Which, I confess, hath always been with me the strongest objection against any project, however so well intended.

But in order to justify my friend, he confessed that this expedient was put into his head by a famous tribal native of another African nation, who came from thence to London above twenty years ago, and in conversation told my friend, that in his country when any young person happened to be put to death, the executioner sold the carcass to persons of quality as a prime dainty. And that in his time the body of a plump girl of fifteen, who was crucified for an attempt to poison the emperor, was sold to his imperial majesty's prime minister of state, and other great mandarins of the court, in joints from the gibbet, fetching a wonderful price. Neither indeed can I deny, that if the same use were made of several plump young girls in this town, who, without one single penny to their fortunes, go about to present themselves as privileged, and demanding of things which they never will pay for, the country would not be the worse.

Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor people, who are aged, diseased, maimed, or morally bankrupted, and I have been desired to employ my thoughts what course may be taken to ease the nation of so grievous an encumbrance. But I am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well known that they are every day dying and rotting by cold and famine, and filth and vermin, and in prisons and murdered, as fast as can be reasonably expected. And as to the young laborers, they are now in as hopeful a condition. They cannot get work, and consequently pine away for want of nourishment, to a degree that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labor, they have not strength to perform it. And thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come.

I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my subject. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance.

For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of racial inferiors, with whom we are yearly overrun, being the principal breeders of the nation as well as our most dangerous enemies. And who stay at home on purpose with a design to deliver the country to the Communists, hoping to take their advantage by the absence of so many good Capitalists, who have chosen rather to leave their country than stay at home and pay tithes against their conscience to a black President.

Secondly, the poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law, may be made liable to distress and help to pay their landlord's rent, their things of value being already seized, and money a thing unknown.

Thirdly, whereas the maintenance of two million children, from two years old and upward, cannot be computed, the nation's stock will be thereby increased per annum, beside the profit of a new dish introduced to the tables of all gentlemen of fortune in the nation who have any refinement in taste. And the money will circulate among ourselves, the goods being entirely of our own growth and manufacture.

Fourthly, the constant breeders, beside the gain of eight thousand dollars per annum, by the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year.

Fifthly, This food would likewise bring great custom to taverns; where the vintners will certainly be so prudent as to procure the best receipts for dressing it to perfection, and consequently have their houses frequented by all the fine gentlemen, who justly value themselves upon their knowledge in good eating: and a skilful cook, who understands how to oblige his guests, will contrive to make it as expensive as they please. And what better season than summer to make great traditions of cooking fine meat, when gatherings and barbecues are so frequent?

Sixthly, this would be a great inducement to marriage, which all wise nations have either encouraged by rewards or enforced by laws and penalties. It would increase the care and tenderness of mothers toward their children, when they were sure of a settlement for life to the poor babes, provided in some sort by the public, to their annual profit instead of expense. We should see an honest emulation among the married women, which of them could bring the fattest child to the market. Men would become as fond of their wives during the time of their pregnancy as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, their sows when they are ready to farrow. Nor offer to beat or kick them, as is too frequent a practice, for fear of a miscarriage.

Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the addition of some thousands of carcasses in our exportation of beef, the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvement in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables. Which are no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well-grown, fat, yearling child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure at a mayor's feast or any other public entertainment. But this and many others I omit, being studious of brevity.

I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised against this proposal. Unless one is worried that the number of people will be thereby much lessened in the nation. This I freely own, and 'twas indeed one principal design in offering it to the world. I desire the reader will observe, that I calculate my remedy for this one individual class of inferiors, and for no other that ever was, is, or, I think, ever can be upon Earth. Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients. Of imposing fines on absentee landlords. Of using neither cloaths, nor houshold furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture. Of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign luxury. Of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our women. Of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and temperance. Of learning to love our country, wherein we differ even from Canada, and the inhabitants of Africa. Of quitting our animosities and factions, nor acting any longer like the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their city was taken. Of being a little cautious not to sell our country and consciences for nothing. Of teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. Lastly, of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our corporations, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact upon us in the price, the measure, and the goodness, nor could ever yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though often and earnestly invited to it.

Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, 'till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.

But, as to my self, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal, which, as it is wholly new, so it hath something solid and real, of no expence and little trouble, full in our own power, and whereby we can incur no danger in disobliging the rest of the world. For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, and flesh being of too tender a consistence, to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country, which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it.

After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion as to reject any offer proposed by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. But before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my scheme, and offering a better, I desire the author or authors will be pleased maturely to consider two points. First, as things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for millions of useless mouths and backs. And secondly, there being a round forty million of creatures in human figure throughout this land, whose whole subsistence put into a common stock would leave them in debt millions upon millions of dollars, adding those who are beggars by profession to the bulk of farmers, tenement dwellers, and laborers, with their wives and children who are beggars in effect. I desire those politicians who dislike my overture, and may perhaps be so bold as to attempt an answer, that they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food, at a year old in the manner I prescribe, and thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes as they have since gone through by the oppression of landlords, the impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor clothes to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect of entailing the like or greater miseries upon their breed for ever.

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the public good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children now by which I can propose to get a single penny.

The End


(Adapted from the original work of Doctor Jonathan Swift)

Poughkeepsie 1981, At 44-Plaza

NBC News Crew Detained Filming Near Vacant NY Prison

This video just came across my desk, and though it happened back in July, this is something that any freedom-loving American should be very concerned about.

An NBC WNYT13 reporter and film crew headed up Mount McGregor to do a story at the Ulysses S. Grant Cottage State Historic Site. The day before this visit was the 129th anniversary marking the death of the Civil War hero, and former Chief Executive of the nation, at his Adirondack retreat.

This was clearly a legitimate human-interest news story, by a legitimate and well-respected mainstream news source. So why were they suddenly ordered to stop filming by a uniformed prison official, who rushed down the mountain at them in a private vehicle? The officer told them that they could not film at the ostensibly public historic site, and ordered them off the mountain entirely. When they did finally try to leave, after being blocked by another prison guard, they were detained by the New York State Police and threatened with arrest unless they handed over their film.

Well let's have a look here at what took place.


This brazen assault on liberty, free-speech, freedom of the press, and our core values as Americans stands as a testament to the actual state of oppression we live under today. This is not freedom, this is tyranny which even 20 years ago we would have thought only happened in third-world dictatorships. Who are these officers, these so-called public servants, actually working for here?

Despite the fact that New York state taxpayers were still paying the salaries for nearly 80 prison guards there, the prison has actually been vacant for almost a year. Not a single prisoner at the prison, but all of those officials still there, guarding what? Between the seemingly pointless cadre of guards and their aggression toward innocent civilians, some have gone so far as to speculate that the news crew may have accidentally stumbled across a so-called secret FEMA camp.

Jesse Ventura's Banned FEMA Camps Episode

Two days after the incident, New York State Department of Corrections pulled their officers off of the site, and private security firm Securitas took over. Securitas is a Swedish-based company which swallowed up the notorious Pinkerton agency here in the U.S., and is now the largest private security company in the world. They operate everything from home security systems, to armored cars once owned by Loomis Fargo & Company, another famed outfit which they absorbed.

Whatever is actually going on up at the old prison may be speculative. What is not speculative however, is what we saw happen to that news crew on that day. A grotesque display of police-state oppression and tyranny right here in our own country, on hallowed ground where an American President and champion of liberty died. Is there a war now, against free speech and the people, where agents can detain you for simply going about your day? What crime is it to capture a public building on film? While there should be outrage across the country at what we saw, there is only complacency and deaf ears. Where is the accountability? Where are the measures to ensure that such trampling of our rights never happens again in this so-called land of the free? Sadly enough, something like this is no longer shocking, just business as usual, as liberty goes quietly into the night.

WTC 7 On 9/11: Evidence

The following is reprinted here, with permission of the original author. 


We are going to present a compilation here of material regarding the collapse of World Trade Center Building #7 on September 11, 2001.



Many have argued that the World Trade Center disaster was actually the result of a controlled demolition project planned well in advance by parties unknown. Much of the focus on the disaster that day has been centered on Towers 1 and 2, which were struck by aircraft. It has also been argued by many, that the damage from the aircraft and ensuing fires would not have been sufficient to cause a symmetrical collapse at nearly free-fall speed. There is compelling evidence to support the idea that the planes could not have brought down the towers, but perhaps the most compelling is that WTC7 was never struck by a plane at all, and yet that building too also collapsed in a way that seems to defy any explanation other than a controlled demolition.

But let's start by looking at the official explanation first. Could fire be the reason that Building 7 collapsed, as we have been told by government officials? It seems rather unlikely, considering that it has never happened before, or since. Yet on 9/11, we are told that three steel buildings were brought down primarily by fire. And again, one of those buildings was not even hit by a plane loaded with fuel.

This is a picture of the fires still burning in WTC7 in the late afternoon of September 11.

Here are some examples, of burning skyscrapers from around the world, that did not collapse, despite the fact that they suffered fires that burned longer, and engulfed more square footage of the structure.

In 1975, World Trade Center Tower 1 also burned on several floors, for several hours, with no modernized fire suppression system or fire-proofing material in place, but did not collapse.


Of course, these towering infernos were not struck by aircraft and were not struck by the debris of the Twin Towers as they collapsed. So let's have a look now at what sort of damage a building can suffer and still remain standing.

This is an image of debris which struck and damaged WTC 7.

For comparison now, here is a picture of the Deutsche Bank building which suffered extensive damage on 9/11. A fire in 2007 claimed the lives of two FDNY firefighters. Nearly a decade later, a $100-million deconstruction project was completed and the building was no more.

The following two images show the damage done to WTC Building #3 on 9/11, and the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City after it was bombed in 1995. Despite the devastation, what remained of the buildings still did not collapse, and had to be brought down later.

Relatively small fires, comparatively far less structural damage than others, yet WTC7 still fell, uniformly, into a nice neat pile.

Even when buildings do happen to collapse, perhaps after an earthquake, they do not implode. Here are some images of what happens when critical supports in a building fail.

Even when specialists spend months planning and spend weeks placing huge amounts of explosives all throughout a building, it is still a difficult task to bring down a building in it's own footprint. There are no guarantees, as these videos show. Demolitions gone wrong, click here, here, and here to see them.

Larry Silverstein, the owner of the WTC complex first explained the collapse of Building 7 saying he gave the order to "pull it." This is a term often used in demolitions, meaning to pull down the building.


Strangely, given the subsequent information you will read here in a moment which has been kown for years, Secretary of State John Kerry also explained the destruction as a controlled demolition rather than an unexpected collapse. 

There is a very serious problem with that explanation though. Fire departments are not trained or equipped for demolitions operations. Fire trucks do not carry explosives, firefighters do not knock down buildings. Even for the world's leading specialists a demolition of that scale is not something that could be done in a matter of hours in a damaged and burning skyscraper. The only explanation could be that the explosives were set, before 9/11.

Silverstein later tried to revise the meaning of his statement, saying that he meant "pull it" as in to pull the rescue effort, and to pull out the firefighters in the building. The only problem with that, is that there were no firefighters in the building according to FEMA, because there was no water available to carry out interior firefighting operations. This video clip corroborates that. That clip also alludes to previous knowledge of impending collapse.

How did anyone know the building was going to collapse before it actually did? Why wasn't it predicted that other, more badly damaged buildings were going to fall, even though they never did? What were the telltale signs that Building 7 was going to collapse?

CRAIG BARTMER NYPD: "I walked around it (Building 7). I saw a hole. I didn't see a hole bad enough to knock a building down, though. Yeah there was definitely fire in the building, but I didn't hear any... I didn't hear any creaking, or... I didn't hear any indication that it was going to come down. And all of a sudden the radios exploded and everyone started screaming 'get away, get away, get away from it!'... It was at that moment... I looked up, and it was nothing I would ever imagine seeing in my life. The thing started pealing in on itself... Somebody grabbed my shoulder and I started running, and the shit's hitting the ground behind me, and the whole time you're hearing "boom, boom, boom, boom, boom." I think I know an explosion when I hear it... Yeah it had some damage to it, but nothing like what they're saying... Nothing to account for what we saw..."

Why did the BBC report that the building had collapsed, 20 minutes before it actually did?


In this video clip, you will hear someone declare that the building ia about to "blow up" as you hear what sounds like explosives going off in the background. Odd choice of words. Blow up. And who told them it was going to blow up?


Perhaps the sounds of bombs going off was a clue, but bombs had been going off all day. Something that was completely overlooked by the media and has never been explained.


But perhaps the most chilling account of bombs in WTC 7 comes from Barry Jennings, Deputy Director of the Emergency Services Department for the New York City Housing Authority. That fateful morning he raced to the Office of Emergency Management located in WTC7, to find it eerily empty, except for New York City's corporate counsel Michael Hess. An explosion trapped the two inside the building. Keep in mind that what he talks about here in the following interview happened before either of the Twin Towers fell, and therefore before the collapses had done any damage to Building 7.


(Videos of Barry Jennings' statements and interviews are routinely scrubbed from the internet. Unfortunately, this has happened again, as one of the most complete videos of his account has been removed, as you can see. For a less complete version, see this video here on YouTube.)

Unfortunately, Barry Jennings will never be able to testify on record about what he saw that day. He died, for unknown reasons, just days before the NIST report on 9/11 was released in 2008. One of the film makers who interviewed Jennings for the film Loose Change hired an investigator to find out more about Jennings' mysterious death. All that he found was Jennings' home empty, and up for sale. He then returned the money to the man who hired him, and told the filmmaker to never contact him again. This only added to the mystery. A commenter at a website claimed to be Jennings' son, and claimed his father had died of leukemia, but the identity of the commenter has never been verified.

Hess publicly corroborated important elements of Jennings' account.


This video examines the collapse of WTC7 and some elements of the NIST report.


If that video was a little too technical for you, don't worry. Most of us are not engineers. There are plenty of real experts out there though, thousands of them, who disagree with the government's findings. This video summarizes the details of the WTC 7 collapse in terms we can all understand.

The Iraq War (Full-Length BBC Documentary Video)

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

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.

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The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
   Button Gwinnett
   Lyman Hall
   George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
   William Hooper
   Joseph Hewes
   John Penn
South Carolina:
   Edward Rutledge
   Thomas Heyward, Jr.
   Thomas Lynch, Jr.
   Arthur Middleton
Column 3
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
Column 4
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
Column 5
New York:
   William Floyd
   Philip Livingston
   Francis Lewis
   Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
   Richard Stockton
   John Witherspoon
   Francis Hopkinson
   John Hart
   Abraham Clark
Column 6
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