Guide to Rewrite the Declaration of Independence
Rutledge
Your version will be in YOUR Declaration of Independence NOT the original excerpts. Excerpt 1: (Preamble to the Declaration of Independence) “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 entitled them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” YOUR PREAMBLE: We, the colonists of the English Colonies, want to explain to the world why we do not want to be part of Great Britain. (Picture/Drawing) Excerpt 2: “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.” YOUR VERSION: Everyone knows that all men are created equal. God gave us certain rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness and nobody, not even the King of Great Britain, can take these rights away. (Picture/Drawing) Excerpt 3: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among MEN, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” YOUR VERSION: People make the government and the purpose of government is to protect the rights of the people. (Picture/Drawing) Excerpt 4: “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.” YOUR VERSION: When the government does not protect our rights, we have the right to get rid of it and start a new government. (Picture/drawing) Excerpt 5: “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.” YOUR VERSION: The King of Great Britain, King George III, has been very mean to us. He wants to order us around. (Picture/Drawing) Excerpt 6: “To prove this {that Great Britain has interfered with colonial rights}, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.” YOUR VERSION: We are going to prove to the world why the King is mean with the following facts. NOW YOU WILL USE BULLETS FOR THE REASONS. “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.” Your version: He has refused to pass laws to protect us.
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“He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.” Your version: He has disbanded our Representative Houses because they opposed the way he has violated the rights of the colonists. “He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount of payment of their salaries.” Your version: He picks the Judges, which carry out his will. If they do not, they will lose their jobs. “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.” Your version: He has built offices for the tax collectors. These tax collectors make our people pay money for taxes, which takes away from our families. “He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislature. He has affected to render the military independent of superior to the Civil Power.” Your version: After the war with France, the King left some of his soldiers over here without permission of our legislature. These soldiers do not obey our laws. “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.” Your version: He has forced us to do things, which are against our laws and violates our rights. Here are some examples: Now use bullets under bullets. “For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.” Your version: For forcing us to have his soldiers living in our homes, eating our food, and drinking our drink. “For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world.” Your version: For forcing us to trade only with Great Britain and no one else. “For imposing taxes on us without our Consent.” Your version: For placing taxes on us without our consent, which is taxation without representation. “For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.” Your Version: For not allowing us in many cases a Trial by Jury. “For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally, the Forms of our Government.” Your version: For taking away our documents of land ownership, doing away with our most valuable laws, and changing our government. “He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. Your version: He has given up Government here, by proclaiming us out of his Protection and waging war against us.
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“He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.” Your version: He has robbed our seas, destroyed 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 and perfidy scarcely paralleled in most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.” Your version: He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign soldiers to our land. He is paying these foreign soldiers to kill us. This action is totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized country. “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.” Your version: He has kidnapped our citizens from our ships and has forced them to fight against their country. They are to become murderers of their fellow citizens or to be killed by their fellow citizens. “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.” Your version: He has encouraged fights between the colonists. He has encouraged the Native Americans to kill us in the most horrible ways and to destroy our homes. (You need eight (8) pictures for the bullets above.) Excerpt 7: “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.” YOUR VERSION: We have written letters to the King asking him to change his mean way, but He just becomes meaner. He is unfit to be our KING. (Picture/drawing) Excerpt 8: “We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, …solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.” YOUR VERSION: We, the United Colonies of the United States of America, are declaring our independence from Great Britain. (Picture/drawing)
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