美国国家公共电台 NPR A July 4 Tradition: NPR Reads The Declaration Of Independence

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STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

On this Fourth of July, we have a reality about the United States. Sometimes this nation takes a step forward just when it seems to be stepping back.

NOEL KING, HOST:

Consider 242 years ago in 1776. A rebellion against British rule had broken out into war. Americans had differing motives² to demand self-government. And for some, the motives were deeply ironic³.

INSKEEP: Recent scholars identified a reason some Americans sought independence. Britain was taking its first steps toward banning slavery, and some Americans feared they might be forced to give up their human property. And so it is said, they joined the fight for freedom to preserve their freedom to own other people.

KING: Now, that dark story had a remarkable⁴ result. In 1776, the Continental⁵ Congress assigned a young Virginian named Thomas Jefferson to draft a declaration of independence. Jefferson was a slave owner, but he considered slavery corrupt⁶, and in his declaration, he wrote a stirring phrase - that all men are created equal. That would become the nation's defining creed⁷.

INSKEEP: In time, that phrase would be used as a reason to free the very slaves whose bondage⁸ was said to be one motive¹ for the declaration. Each July 4, we read the words the founders⁹ endorsed¹⁰ in 1776.

KING: If only they knew where those words would lead.

(SOUNDBITE OF ERIC WEINBERG'S "DAWN AT YORKTOWN")

INSKEEP: (Reading) 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 entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel¹¹ them to the separation.

RACHEL MARTIN, BYLINE¹²: (Reading) 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, that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving¹³ their just powers from the consent of the governed.

DAVID GREENE, BYLINE: (Reading) 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, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.

KING: (Reading) Prudence¹⁴, indeed, will dictate¹⁵ that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes. And accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

DON GONYEA, BYLINE: (Reading) But when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security.

DEBORAH AMOS, BYLINE: (Reading) Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies and such is now the necessity which constrains¹⁶ them to alter their former systems of government.

JOE PALCA, BYLINE: (Reading) 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. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid¹⁷ world.

AUDIE CORNISH, BYLINE: (Reading) He has refused his assent¹⁸ to laws, the most wholesome¹⁹ and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate²⁰ and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained. And when so suspended, he has utterly²¹ neglected to attend to them.

SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: (Reading) He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish²² the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants²⁴ only.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, BYLINE: (Reading) He has called together legislative²⁵ bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable and distant from the depository of their public records for the sole purpose of fatiguing²⁶ them into compliance²⁷ with his measures.

SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: (Reading) He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly for opposing with manly²⁸ firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: (Reading) He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected whereby the legislative powers, incapable²⁹ of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.

CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: (Reading) He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing³⁰ the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations³¹ hither and raising the conditions of new appropriations³² of lands.

NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: (Reading) He has obstructed³³ 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 tenure³⁴ of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.

SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: (Reading) He has erected³⁵ a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms³⁶ of officers to harass³⁷ our people and eat out their substance.

MICHEL MARTIN, BYLINE: (Reading) He has kept among us in times of peace standing³⁸ armies without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected³⁹ to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

AYESHA RASCOE, BYLINE: (Reading) He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction⁴⁰ foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation.

OFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON, BYLINE: (Reading) 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.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, BYLINE: (Reading) For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world, for imposing⁴¹ taxes on us without our consent, for depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury.

AILSA CHANG, BYLINE: (Reading) For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses⁴², 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.

LINDA WERTHEIMER, BYLINE: (Reading) 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 invested with power to legislate⁴³ for us in all cases whatsoever⁴⁴.

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: (Reading) He has abdicated⁴⁵ government here by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us. He has plundered⁴⁶ our seas, ravaged⁴⁷ our coasts, burnt our towns and destroyed the lives of our people.

ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: (Reading) He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy⁴⁸ scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy the head of a civilized⁴⁹ nation.

GENE⁵⁰ DEMBY, BYLINE: (Reading) He has constrained⁵¹ 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.

ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: (Reading) He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages⁵², whose known rule of warfare⁵³ is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress⁵⁴ in the most humble⁵⁵ terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.

EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: (Reading) A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant²³ is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have we been wanting in the tensions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.

SUSAN STAMBERG, BYLINE: (Reading) We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity. And we have conjured⁵⁶ them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably⁵⁷ interrupt our connections and correspondence.

SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: (Reading) They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity⁵⁸. We must therefore acquiesce⁵⁹ in the necessity which denounces our separation and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war; in peace, friends.

COKIE ROBERTS, BYLINE: (Reading) We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in general Congress assembled appealing to the supreme⁶⁰ judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions do in the name and by authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states.

GREENE: (Reading) That they are absolved⁶¹ from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved.

R. MARTIN: (Reading) And that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy⁶² war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.

INSKEEP: (Reading) And for the support of this declaration with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence⁶³, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

(SOUNDBITE OF ERIC WEINBERG'S "DAWN AT YORKTOWN")

KING: Two-hundred-forty-two years ago today, church bells rang out over Philadelphia as the Continental Congress adopted this draft of the Declaration of Independence.

(SOUNDBITE OF ERIC WEINBERG'S "DAWN AT YORKTOWN")