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The
American
Testament...
The
American Testament
is the
three paramount
documents, The Declaration of Independence, The
Preamble to the Constitution, and the Gettysburgh
Address, which are the most valuable American
documents. They are worth being studied as a
testament, thoroughly and devoutly.
Declaration
of Independence
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.
Preamble
to the Constitution
We the
people of the United States, in order to form a
more perfect union, establish justice, insure
domestic tranquility, provide for the common
defense, promote the general welfare, and secure
the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.
Gettysburg
Address
Four score
and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon
this continent a new nation: conceived in liberty,
and dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created equal.
Now we are
engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so
dedicated. . . can long endure. We are met on a
great battlefield of that war.
We have
come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final
resting place for those who here gave their lives
that that nation might live. It is altogether
fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a
larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot
consecrate. . . we cannot hallow this ground. The
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have
consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or
detract. The world will little note, nor long
remember, what we say here, but it can never forget
what they did here.
It is for
us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the
unfinished work which they who fought here have
thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to
be here dedicated to the great task remaining
before us. . .that from these honored dead we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they
gave the last full measure of devotion. . . that we
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have
died in vain. . . that this nation, under God,
shall have a new birth of freedom. . . and that
government of the people. . .by the people. . .for
the people. . . shall not perish from the earth.
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