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PART I.

STEPS LEADING TO THE ORGANIZATION OF

THE STATE OF ILLINOIS.

How the war of the Revolution commenced; how it was prosecuted on the part of our fathers, mid hardships, privations and discouragements unequaled, with a spirit and energy that knew no defeat; how from the long agony of tears and blood came gloriously the consummation of their hopes, “a national independence," are matters of history with which every boy and girl in the land are familiar; and as our purpose is but to give a sketch of our own State's history, we will merely refer to those parts of the national history necessary to accomplish that .end.

In the good old city of Philadelphia, there assembled in Carpenter's Hall, on Monday, the 5th day of September, 1774, the First Continental Congress. This body of men, the representatives of the then thirteen Colonies, had been called together to consider certain grievances to the Colonies from the mother country. From the date of the first assembly of this Congress until the spring of 1776, every effort was made by the same to bring about a reconciliation between the States and Great Britain, but without success. The government of England, in its madness, seemed determined to drive its American dependencies to the last extremity of humiliating submission to tyrannical exaction.

On Tuesday, the 2d day of July, 1776, this Congress resolved that the Colonies ought to be free and independent States; and on the 4th of July, the whole declaration having been agreed upon, was publicly announced to the world. On the 9th of September following, the style and title of "United States of America" was given to the new government, and thenceforth

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remained an abiding joy to the oppressed of the world, and a terror to despots.

November 15th, 1777, Articles of Confederation were agreed upon by delegates in Congress, subject to the ratification of the several State Legislatures. Eight of these ratified on the 9th of July, 1778, one on the 21st, and one on the 24th of July, one on the 26th of November the same year, one on the 22d of February, 1779, and the last on March 1st, 1781.

This instrument, though found to be very defective, was, nevertheless, sufficient for its day and purpose. In fact, it may be regarded as the corner stone of the Republic, upon which has been reared the more beautiful structure, with the style of architecture not changed, but improved. By it, the Colonies were bound in ties of common interest, and their delegates assembled in Congress to legislate for the common good; and though but a confederation of independent States, bound together for mutual protection in the presence of a great necessity, yet it solved the grandest problem ever submitted to man -man's right and power to rule himself.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE,

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4th, 1776.

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 organiz ing 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 shown, that mankind are more disposed to suf fer, 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 bas 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 repository 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 migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

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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 created 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 benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitary 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 govern

ments:

For suspending our own legislature, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases what

soever.

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 complete 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.

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the exccutioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrection among 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 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 attention 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 connection 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 the 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 com> merce, 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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