Founder's Quote Day 4

On July 6th, 1775 our Continental Congress took action against England in offering a stern resolution, and warning, to the mother country. It seemed war was inevitable, and though most colonists did not desire war, they knew that that is what it might take in order to secure something England had deprived them of for so long: Freedom. This was titled a Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, and drafted by John Dickinson, and Thomas Jefferson. It began with a general statement of principles, then proceeded with a history of America leading up to the conflict-at-hand and enumerated the specific injuries and injustices inflicted upon the colonies by the mother country. I then concluded with a firm resolve to take up arms and defend American liberty:

"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves."