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On the "Causes & Necessity for Taking Up Arms"...
On the "Causes & Necessity for Taking Up Arms"...
Item # 700625
August 21, 1775
ARIS'S BIRMINGHAM GAZETTE, England, Aug. 21, 1775 The very top of the front page has an extremely historic letter which summarizes the text of the document issued by the American Congress on July 6, 1775, which we now know as the "Causes & Necessity For Taking Up Arms".
Written by Jefferson & Dickinson, in it Congress rejects independence but insists Americans would rather die than be enslaved. Some of the key phrases from the lengthy document are included in the text, including the operative enslavement phrase: "With hearts satisfied with these animating reflections we most sincerely...declare that exerting the utmost energy of those powers which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed on us, the Arms we have been compelled by our enemies to take up, we will...employ for the preservation of our Liberties, being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than live slaves; we have not raised armies with ambitious designs of separating from Great Britain, & establishing independent states; we fight not for glory nor conquest; the arms we have now taken up we shall lay down when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors & all danger of their being renewed shall be removed, and not before." and signed in type: John Hancock, President.
The full text of this document (not included in this newspaper) makes reference to Gage's war-like Proclamation of June 12, 1775. Plus there is much more on America filling out most of the first column. There are additional Revolutionary War items on pages 2 & 3 as well which are quite nice, but still they pale in comparison to the historic front page report.
Four pages., folio size, browning & chipping at the central portion of the right margins, minor wear, minor margin wear, otherwise rather nice.
Category: Revolutionary War
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