Supplementary Reading for A Survey of U.S.A.

Text 1 The Declaration of Independence (Thomas Jefferson, 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 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 shown, 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 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 migration 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 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 neighboring 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 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 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 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 bur 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 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 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.

Text 2 The Emancipation Proclamation (Abraham Lincoln, 1863)

Whereas on the 22nd day of September, AD 1862, a proclamation was issued by the President of the United States,
containing, among other things, the following, to wit:
"That on the 1st day of January, AD 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State
the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free;
and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize
and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any o f them, in any
efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
"That the executive will on the 1st day of January aforesaid by proclamation, designate the States and parts of
States, if any in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebel lion against the United States; And the fact
that any State or the people thereof shall on that day be in good faith represented in the Congress of the United States
by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated
shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State an the people
thereof are not then in rebellion against the Unite States.
Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the Unite States, by virtue of the power in me vested as
Commander-m', Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States in time of actual armed rebellion against the
authority and government of the United States, and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppressing said rebellion,
do, on this 1st day of January, AD 1863, and in accordance with my purpose so to do, publicly proclaimed for the full
period of one hundred days from the first day above mentioned, order and designate as the States and parts of States
wherein the people thereof, respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States the following, to wit:
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Palquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St.
James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin and Orleans, including the city of New
Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight
counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Morthhampton, Elizabeth City,
York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for
the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
And by virtue of the power and for the purpose aforesaid, I do order and declare that all persons held as slaves
within said designated States and parts of States are, and henceforward shall be, free; and that the Executive
Government of the United States, including the military and naval authorities thereof, will recognize and maintain the
freedom of said persons.
And I hereby enjoin upon the people so declared to be free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self-
defence; and I recommend to them that, in all case when allowed, they labor faithfully for reasonable wages.
And I further declare and make known that such persons of suitable condition will be received into the armed
service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said
service. And upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon military
necessity, I invoke the considerate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and
sixty three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh.
 Text 3 The Gettysburg Address (Abraham Lincoln, 1863)
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether
that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that
nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we
cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated
it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, buy it can
never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work, which they
who fought here have thus tar so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that his nation under God
shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish
from the earth.