… the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms, enacted by the 2nd Continental Congress on 6 July 1775.

This five-page declaration explained why the Colonies believed armed resistance against the Crown (Great Britain) had become necessary. Although the delegates still expressed hope for peace, they made it clear they were prepared to defend their liberties by force—setting the stage for the Declaration of Independence one year later.

Part of that process we discussed earlier this month, it is worth studying by lovers of liberty.

You can find it here.

It’s ending words are striking:

Lest this  declaration  should  disquiet  the  minds  of  our  friends  and  fellow-­‐subjects   in  any  part  of  the  empire,  we  assure  them  that  we  mean  not  to  dissolve  that  union   which  has  so  long  and  so  happily  subsisted  between  us,  and  which  we  sincerely  wish  to   see  restored. Necessity  has  not  yet  driven  us  into  that  desperate  measure,  or  induced   us  to  excite  any  other  nation  to  war  against  them.  We  have  not  raised  armies  with   ambitious  designs  of  separating  from  Great-Britain,  and  establishing  independent  states.   We  fight  not  for  glory  or  for  conquest.  We  exhibit  to  mankind  the  remarkable  spectacle   of  a  people  attacked  by  unprovoked  enemies,  without  any  imputation  or  even  suspicion   of  offence.  They  boast  of  their  privileges  and  civilization,  and  yet  proffer  no  milder   conditions  than  servitude  or  death.    

In  our  own  native  land,  in  defence  of  the  freedom  that  is  our  birthright,  and   which  we  ever  enjoyed  till  the  late  violation  of  it for  the  protection  of  our  property,   acquired  solely  by  the  honest  industry  of  our  fore-­‐fathers  and  ourselves,  against   violence  actually  offered,  we  have  taken  up  arms.  We  shall  lay  them  down  when   hostilities  shall  cease  on  the  part  of  the  aggressors,  and  all  danger  of  their  being   renewed  shall  be  removed,  and  not  before.     

With  an  humble  confidence  in  the  mercies  of  the  supreme  and  impartial  Judge   and  Ruler  of  the  Universe,  we  most  devoutly  implore  his  divine  goodness  to  protect  us   happily through  this  great  conflict,  to  dispose  our  adversaries  to  reconciliation  on   reasonable  terms,  and  thereby  to  relieve  the  empire  from  the  calamities  of  civil  war.

Can we have the same attitude those men and women had 251 years ago today?