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Did you know there was a rebuttal to the Declaration of Independence?

July 4, 2012 @ 6:46 am (Updated: 8:05 am - 7/4/12 )

declaration

Today, we celebrate the Declaration of Independence, but haven't you ever wondered how the British reacted to it?

Did you know there was a rebuttal?

Well, there was. A 142 page rebuttal (pdf- page 107) by a Tory pamphleteer named John Lind titled "Answer to the Declaration of the American Congress", and written in the same snarky tone as an attack ad.

But like most attack ads, it also contained a few facts that the rebels didn't want to face. You remember the part where the Declaration says King George (quote) "has incited domestic insurrections among us..."?

John Lind points out that what the rebels were really upset about was that the King had "offered freedom to the slaves."

(QUOTE) "Is it for them to say that it is tyranny to bid a slave be free?"

Lind goes on to mock the founders for writing noble words stating, "all men are created equal" and asserting "Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" and then in the same document, complaining about the King for encouraging the slaves to rise up.

"Is it for them to complain of the offer of freedom held out to these wretched beings? of the offer of reinstating that equality, which, in this very paper, is declared to be the gift of God to all?"

Of course the British knew a wedge issue when they saw it, and they also had a military agenda in wanting to free the slaves, but even as we celebrate our separation from the mother country, we have to acknowledge, as Jefferson himself would have, that on this point at least, Mom was right.

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Comments (55)


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  • John S Paul wrote...
    Pathetic
    July 4, 2012 7:25 am
    Leave it to Dave to kick off Independence Day with a counter to the Declaration of Independence. He can't make any comment about how this country came to be, the importance of the rebellion against the crown, or the significance of the Declaration. Little does he realize that it is because of the actions of our Founding Fathers that he even has the right to be the sniveling little card-carrying Lib loyalist that he is, and thinks that everyone else in the country should be.

    As for him calling the "rebuttal" snarky - pot, meet kettle. Dave can't say anything without being snarky about it. And even worse is the way he mistakes his snarkiness and sarcasm as wit and humor.

    As I said: Pathetic.

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  • cdbtx wrote...
    No Problem
    July 4, 2012 7:42 am
    When I operated a business in London... I gave all the employees the 4th off... paid, of course...
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  • ron prevost wrote...
    Dave Ross searches the past - And finds an 18th century Progressive !
    July 4, 2012 7:51 am
    This John Lind MUST have been a progressive. For all his lofty TALK about King George 'offering freedom' to slaves, there was nothing of humanitarian substance. For England still held Ireland in slavery - and would for another 140 years - without even providing the subsistence the 'hypocritical' Americans provided their slaves. And didn't get around to ending even slave TRADE until 1807.

    But he talked the talk. Maybe to fool the slaves into thinking England offered them hope when all she wanted was their service in arms. Certainly not to offer any sort of equality. If not the Irish, the people of India could set you straight.

    Sure, our founding fathers were hypocritical offering that all men are created equal while keeping men in slavery. But we DID correct that somewhat years later when 3,000,000 Northern boys (and a good many Irish immigrants) died to end slavery. And then in our own lifetimes with the civil rights struggles of the 60s.

    And that 'hypocritical' Declaration inspired Europe in the 19th century and ultimately much of the world to representative government and at least more true equality than this world had known for all time prior.

    So, Dave, Happy Forth of July. Do a little more research next time.

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  • ron prevost wrote...
    Yes, I just cought the typo
    July 4, 2012 8:05 am
    But let's just go forth and celebrate the fourth
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  • Cows Rule wrote...
    Your my hero Dave...
    July 4, 2012 8:15 am
    ...sharp as a beachball.
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  • Paul Kersey wrote...
    Nancy Pelosi has her own rebuttal to the Declaration..
    July 4, 2012 8:02 am
    "Obamacare guarantees life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

    No need to look to history for tyrants, they are here and now.

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  • John S Paul wrote...
    ron - didn't you know?
    July 4, 2012 8:06 am
    Dave is a typical Western Washington liberal. He doesn't have to do any research, because he knows everything about everything. Anyone who disagrees with him is wrong and an idiot. Even when faced with facts, liberals will never admit that they were in the wrong. Their mentality is, "I say that it is this way, so it is this way. And if it is not this way, then it should be this way - because I said so."

    Again, like I've already said: Pathetic.

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  • ron prevost wrote...
    I got my own curiosity up on English slavery.
    July 4, 2012 8:34 am
    Seems it wasn't even until 1938 that Black slavery was ended in the British West Indies. And after that, they brought in workers from India to do the same plantation work for a little money but a lot less food.

    Uh, Dave ? .. Just who were the true hypocrites?

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  • ron prevost wrote...
    oops - 1838. EIGHTEEN thirty eight.
    July 4, 2012 8:35 am
    ...
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  • anotherfencewalker wrote...
    Then and now..
    July 4, 2012 9:08 am
    If anyone is still reading a history book out there, it could be worth your while to study up a bit on what the British Empire looked like politically and geographically in the 16-1700's. The "owned" a lot of real estate. To challenge them meant sure death or some quick annihilation in a slow way. America was a gold mine in all catagories that they did not want to give up. Food could be grown on never ending ground that included a biggie crop at the time, Tobacco. Seaports galore! A quick trade route to the west indies where they make some terrific spice things. To this day, you wont keep a Brit away from their salt and pepper. So, you couldn't just fire off a memo from Philadelphia to the King and queen and tell them "thanks very much and all but we've got this one handled." and then start your own gated community. Ballzy founding fathers we had. The original "tough kids". But, what really snapped the redcoats was that"Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown" part..Ouch! That just wasn't going to fly. So it ends up the British got chased out and lost a mega territory and a war. All at monumental losses to both sides. No war is clinical but wars weren't sanitary operations back then. No rules of engagement. They even tried to take another swing at it in 1812 with similar results. So were there hard feelings? Hell yeah. That's why many brits still refer to the U.S. as the "colonies"..
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  • anotherfencewalker wrote...
    Just in case some of you have never actually read the whole thing..
    July 4, 2012 9:13 am
    IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, 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 impel them to the separation. 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, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --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 effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 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.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. 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 candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. 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. 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. 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. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. 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 mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured 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. He has obstructed 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 tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. 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: 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: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring 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: 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 legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained 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. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. 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 conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme 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; that they are Absolved 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; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
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  • rational wrote...
    anotherfencewalker
    July 4, 2012 10:20 am
    It's amazing how much of that applies to Obama.

    obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners

    He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

    For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent

    He has obstructed the Administration of Justice

    altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments

    declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever

    And the conclusion...

    A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

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  • ronzilla wrote...
    fencewalker: use a '' symbol.
    July 4, 2012 11:46 pm
    lessthan p greaterthan

    It forms paragraphs in your text.

    Just trying to be helpful.

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  • ronzilla wrote...
    This lame site won't even display the code when I break it down.
    July 4, 2012 11:49 pm
    I apologize for the confusion.

    Lessthan p greaterthan

    DOES work though, if you get my meaning.

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  • maplefish wrote...
    Wretched Beings
    July 4, 2012 9:18 am
    Lind was referring to Liberals..Happy Birthday America!
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  • rational wrote...
    Not to worry
    July 4, 2012 9:37 am
    you don't have to worry about slavery or tyranny issues from the 18th century...we're fighting against those same forces perpetrated by progressives in our own day. Odd thing though...Dave seems to be in favor of them.
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  • sohojo wrote...
    F The British
    July 4, 2012 9:40 am
    and if you don't like American F you and get the F out. Oh, and by the way...F the Queen as well. America is the greatest country in the world and if you can't handle this FACT, F you as well.
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  • Forrest wrote...
    sohojo; No thanks, I'm not Gay.
    July 4, 2012 10:22 am
    But I'm sure you could find a religious, right wing fundie in a public bathroom to F.
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  • sohojo wrote...
    Hey Forrest
    July 4, 2012 11:02 am
    Go F yourself.
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