PRESIDENT GENERAL. Is there any other voter in the House who has not cast her vote? If so, she will please come forward. The Chair will announce that the ballot box is closed and that this House stands adjourned until to-morrow morning at 10 o'clock. (9.45 p. m.) MORNING SESSION, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1901. The Congress was called to order at 10.45 o'clock by the President General, Mrs. Daniel Manning. PRESIDENT GENERAL. The House must be in order. All the ladies who are outside will please come in and take their seats. This House understands that no one who is not a voter can have a seat on this floor. I understand that there are some ladies on this floor not entitled to vote. Will they leave the floor immediately. PRESIDENT GENERAL. The Bishop of Washington will lead us this morning in prayer. Bishop SATTERLEE. Let us pray. Most gracious God, we humbly beseech Thee for the people of these United States in general, here especially, for their Senate and Representatives in Congress assembled, that Thou wouldest be pleased to prosper all their consultations, for the advancement of Thy cause, the good of Thy religion, the safety, and honor, and welfare of Thy people, that all things may be so ordered and settled by their endeavors upon the best and surest foundations, that peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety may be established among us, for all generations, and we beseech Thee O Lord to continue with us the principles and the traditions established by our forefathers, that we, in our day and generation, may help our country to take her stand; and we ask it all in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Almighty and everlasting God, we give Thee hearty thanks for the good examples of all those Thy servants who have gone before us; and especially for General Washington, whose birthday we now commemorate. Grant that we may bear his example, and that of those who labored with him, in our hearts and minds; beseeching Thee that we, with them, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in Thine eternal and everlasting glory, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. The Congress joined in the Lord's prayer, followed by the Bishop's benediction. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore, Amen. Mr. FOSTER. Let us all rise and sing one verse, the third verse, of the "Star Spangled Banner." PRESIDENT GENERAL. The Chair asks that the regular order of business be set aside on this 22nd day of February, the birthday of Washington for the reading of the Declaration of Independence. What is the pleasure of the House? Miss MILLER. I move that it be done, Madam President. Miss RICHARDS. I second that. PRESIDENT GENERAL. It is moved and seconded. Are you ready for the question? Those in favor will please say "aye;" opposed,,"no." The "ayes" seem to have it. The "aves" have it. We have the honor to-day of having present with us the Bishop of Washington, who has graciously consented to read the Declaration of Independence for this Tenth Continental Congress. Bishop SATTERLEE. Madam Chairman, and Ladies: I cannot tell you what a privilege it is on this auspicious day to read this remarkable document, and to read it also from Bancroft's History of the United States. I felt that there is something even in the book itself that has an association connected with it. (Declaration of Independence read by Bishop.) 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 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 shown, 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 usurpation, 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 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 migration 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 harass our People, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislature. He has affected to render the Military independence 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 all our Trade with all parts of the world: 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 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: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Government: For suspending our own Legislature, 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 complete 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 attention to our British brethren. |