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🪵 The Threshold

The draft Declaration framed independence around rights violated by the king

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tagsja-picks, causal_relationships, singleton, xref, factual_claims, category/causal-relationships

3 min read

The draft Declaration framed independence around rights violated by the king

Evidence

As if to explain the action in Lockean terms of protecting life, liberty, and property, the Halifax Resolves leveled four accusations against the British government in America. First, the Resolves declared, “The King and Parliament of Great Britain have usurped a Power over the person and properties of the People, unlimited and uncontrouled.” Second, they charged “That British Fleets and Armies have been, and still are, daily employed in destroying the People, and committing the most horrid devastations on the country.” Third, the Resolves added that some royal governors “have declared protection to slaves, who should imbrue their hands in the blood of their [patriot] masters.” Finally, they asserted that Britain had made American ships “prizes of war and many of them have been violently seized and confiscated.” Named or implied, Norfolk, Dunmore, Martin, the Declaratory Act, and the American Prohibitory Act figured as justification for independence. The Provincial Congress passed the Resolves unanimously even before Penn and Hooper reached Halifax. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 138 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

As if to explain the action in Lockean terms of protecting life, liberty, and property, the Halifax Resolves leveled four accusations against the British government in America. First, the Resolves declared, “The King and Parliament of Great Britain have usurped a Power over the person and properties of the People, unlimited and uncontrouled.” Second, they charged “That British Fleets and Armies have been, and still are, daily employed in destroying the People, and committing the most horrid devastations on the country.” Third, the Resolves added that some royal governors “have declared protection to slaves, who should imbrue their hands in the blood of their [patriot] masters.” Finally, they asserted that Britain had made American ships “prizes of war and many of them have been violently seized and confiscated.” Named or implied, Norfolk, Dunmore, Martin, the Declaratory Act, and the American Prohibitory Act figured as justification for independence. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 138 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

The preamble’s content underscored the revolutionary intent of Congress’s resolution on independent governments. In prior petitions and resolutions, Congress had assigned culpability for American grievances to Parliament or individual ministers and officers. In Adams’s preamble, however, Congress leveled charges directly against the king. … The monarch, however, stood above politics as the embodiment of the state. Attacking the king’s authority or legitimacy represented a revolutionary act akin to those of Roundheads and republicans during the English Civil War. — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 167 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

  • XREF: connects to: The patriot movement’s founding pamphlet demanded rights, not independence — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 31; Blaming the king rather than Parliament was a revolutionary act — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 167; North Carolina’s independence resolves framed grievances in Lockean terms of rights — Edward J. Larson, Declaring Independence, 138 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

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