Founding America: Documents from the Revolution to the Bill of Rights (24 page)

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 injuries. 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] a jurisdiction over [us]
. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration & 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 & 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]!