n North
America;' another entitled, 'An act for the better regulating the
government of the province of Massachusetts Bay in New England;' and
another act, entitled, 'An act for the impartial administration of
justice, in the cases of persons questioned for any act done by them
in the execution of the law, or for the suppression of riots and
tumults, in the province of the Massachusetts Bay in New England;' and
another statute was then made, 'for making more effectual provision
for the government of the province of Quebec,' &c. All which statutes
are impolitic, unjust, and cruel, as well as unconstitutional, and
most dangerous and destructive of American rights.

"And whereas, assemblies have been frequently dissolved, contrary to
the rights of the people, when they attempted to deliberate on
grievances; and their dutiful, humble, loyal, and reasonable petitions
to the crown for redress, have been repeatedly treated with contempt
by his majesty's ministers of state; the good people of the several
colonies of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and
Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, New Castle, Kent and Sussex on Delaware, Maryland,
Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, justly alarmed at the
arbitrary proceedings of parliament and administration, have severally
elected, constituted and appointed deputies to meet and sit in general
congress, in the city of Philadelphia, in order to obtain such
establishment, as that their religion, laws, and liberties, may not be
subverted: whereupon the deputies so appointed being now assembled, in
a full and free representation of these colonies, taking into their
most serious consideration, the best means of attaining the ends
aforesaid, do in the first place, as Englishmen their ancestors in
like cases have usually done, for asserting and vindicating their
rights and liberties, declare, that the inhabitants of the English
colonies in North America, by the immutable laws of nature, the
principles of the English constitution, and the several charters or
compacts, have the following rights.

"Resolved, unanimously, 1st, that they are entitled to life, liberty,
and property; and they have never ceded to any sovereign power
whatever, a right to dispose of either without their consent.

"Resolved, unanimously, 2d, that our ancestors, who first settled
these colonies, were, at the time of their emigration from the mother
country, e