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
mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without, and convul-
sions within.
He has endeavoured 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 offenses;
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 invest-
ed 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
compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with cir-
cumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous
ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
110 C
HAPTER 4
This is a reference to the 10,000
troops that the British government
stationed in North America after the
French and Indian War. Although the
British government saw the troops
as protection for the colonists, the
colonists themselves viewed the
troops as a standing army that
threatened their freedom.
Here Jefferson condemns both the
king and Parliament for passing the
Intolerable Acts. Most of these laws
were intended to punish the people
of Massachusetts for the Boston
Tea Par ty. For example, the
Quartering Act of 1765 forced
colonists to provide lodging for
British troops. Another act allowed
British soldiers accused of murder
to be sent back to England for trial.
The Boston Port Bill closed the port
of Boston, “cutting off our Trade
with all parts of the world.”
Here Jefferson refers to the Quebec
Act, which extended the boundaries
of the province. He then refers to
another act that changed the
charter of Massachusetts and
restricted town meetings.
