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[{"insert":"INSTRUCTIONS TO DELEGATES FOR JAMES CITY COUNTY, VIRGINIA."},{"attributes":{"align":"center"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\n\tThe Freeholders of "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"James City"},{"insert":" being desirous of expressing their sentiments on the important subject of Independency, a majority residing in the County assembled at "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Allen’s"},{"insert":" Ordinary, the 24th of "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"April"},{"insert":", 1776, for that purpose, and agreed to the following Instructions:\n\n\t“"},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"To"},{"insert":" ROBERT C. NICHOLAS "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"and"},{"insert":" WILLIAM NORVELL, "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Esq’s"},{"insert":":\n\n\t“GENTLEMEN: In vain do we congratulate ourselves upon the impotency of the Minister to divide us, if our union amounts to nothing more than an union in one common lethargy. War hath been brought into our houses, heightened by terrours and cruelties, which thejustest cause wants even palliatives for; but faint advances towards peace, insidiously urged, have caught the ear of the credulous, and groundless hopes of accommodation deluded the timid, so that the true military system remains untouched in the most essential points. As if our inexperience, poverty in warlike stores, and the infancy of our Navy, were of trifling moment, we have ventured to neglect resources, in such difficulties, which Heaven hath placed within our attainment.\n\n\t‘‘Alliances may be formed at an easy price, capable of supplying these disadvantages, but an independent State disdains to humble herself to an equality in treaty with another who cannot call her politicks her own; or, to be explicit, she cannot enter into a negotiation with those who denominate themselves Rebels, by resistance, and confession of a dependancy.\n\n\t“Reason, drawn from justice, policy, and necessity, are everywhere at hand for a radical separation from "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Great Britain"},{"insert":". From justice; for the blood of those who have fallen in our cause cries aloud, “It is time to part.” From necessity; because she hath, of herself, repudiated us, by a rapid succession of insult, injury, robbery, murder, and a formal declaration of war. These are but few, and some of the weakest arguments which the great volume of our oppression opens to every spirited "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"American"},{"insert":".\n\n\t“It cannot be a violation of our faith now, to reject the terms of 1763. They are a qualified slavery at best, and were acceptable to us, not as the extent of our right, but the probable cause of peace; but since the day in which they were most humbly offered as the end of animosities, an interval hath passed marked with tyranny intolerable.\n\n\t“We, therefore, whose names are hereunto subscribed, do request and instruct you, our Delegates, (provided no just and honourable terms are offered by the King,) to exert your utmost abilities, in the next Convention, towards dissolving the connection between "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"America"},{"insert":" and "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Great Britain"},{"insert":", totally, finally, and irrevocably.”\n\n\t[The above Instructions are signed by a majority of the Freeholders living in the County.]\n"}]
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Grouping Name
Appendix A: State and Local Declarations of Independence
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5
States
1354
131846 - ?-??
Massachusetts
1462
541823 - ?-??
Counties
1354
8?-??
Appendix B: Local Resolutions on Independence: Some Examples
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6?-??
New York
1462
2?-??
Grand Jury Presentments
1354
4?-??
Appendix C: The Declaration of Independence: The Jefferson Draft with Congress's Editorial Changes
Force, Peter. American Archives: consisting of a collection of authentick records, state papers, debates, and letters and other notices of publick affairs, the whole forming a documentary history of the origin and progress of the north American colonies; of the causes and accomplishment of the American Revolution; and of the constitution of government for the United States, to the final ratification thereof. 4th Series, Volume V. Washington: M. St Clair Clarke, 1844. Available at HeinOnline.
