The 4th of July at Wood Equipment Company

Today, 246 years ago, citizens of our country published the Declaration of Independence to codify our colonies into a War that had already begun over a year prior. Over the course of many years leading up to the first shot of the American War of Independence the British Empire had enacted laws that the American Colonies deemed to be tyrannical and unjust. Within the Declaration of Independence was a list of 27 grievances that the founders of our Country thought were important enough to list in a timeless document. It is important to remember why The United States of America decided to shed the blood of its citizens in hopes for a better future.’

1. “He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”
2. “He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.”
3. “He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.”
4. “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.”
5. “He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.”
6. “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 meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.”
7. “He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.”
8. “He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.”
9. “He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.”
10. “He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”
11. “He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.”
12. “He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.”
13. “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.”
14. “For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.”
15. “For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.”
16. “For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world.”
17. “For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.”
18. “For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.”
19. “For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.”
20. “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.”
21. “For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments.”
22. “For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.”
23. “He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.