Tag: politics

This is the first of a new series of posts: VPE, or Very Plain English. In these posts, I will “translate” old-fashioned documents and speeches into a clearer, more modern style. Of course, reading these translations isn’t the same as reading the original, and it’s great to read the original afterward if you can. But if you’re in a hurry, and you just want to know what the document says, these VPE versions should make them easy to understand quickly.

If there is a document or speech that you would like to see translated, you can comment below and I will add it to my list. It doesn’t have to be an old or famous document, but it should be in English. These translations take a long time, so it might be a while before I get to it, but I will do my best.

You can read the original text here: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

If you want more detailed information about the Declaration of Independence, this website has a great breakdown: https://www.nps.gov/fost/blogs/the-declaration-of-independence-what-were-they-thinking.htm

The Declaration of Independence (in very plain English):

All thirteen united States of America are making this Declaration together. [The United States began as thirteen colonies.]

Sometimes in life, a group of people have to separate from another group of people they used to be politically connected with. The laws of Nature and the laws of God say that every group of people deserves to have its own separate, equal place in the world (not ruled by other groups of people) if it wants to.

If a group of people decide that they want to become independent, it is polite and considerate for them to explain their reasons so that other people can understand them.

These are things that we believe, and we think these things are very obviously true, so we don’t need to prove them:

1. All men are created equal. [At this time, most writers (men and women) used “men” when they were talking about all people. I will use “people” from here on.]
   
2. God has given all people rights that cannot be taken away.
   
3. Some of the rights that God have given people are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. (This means that it is every person’s right to try and get the things that will make them happy.)
   
4. People make governments to protect the rights that God gave them. A government is only “just” (fair and legal) if the people in the country agree to let that government rule them.
   
5. If any kind of government starts to take away people’s rights, then the people have the right to change that government or get rid of it. They can make a new government, instead. They should think about what kind of government would be best at helping them to be safe and happy, and they should set up their new government to be like that.
   
   Of course, if a government has existed for a long time, it’s not smart to change it for petty or unimportant reasons. That’s probably why people are usually going to put up with bad things for as long as they can instead of getting rid of the government they’ve always been used to, even if that government has started to do bad things. But if bad things have been happening for a long time (if the government has been hurting people and taking things away from them), and if the government’s actions show that it plans to take away all the people’s freedom and rule them without giving them any rights, then people have a right and a duty to throw that government off. After they’ve done that, they should take steps to be sure that they can never be put in danger like that again.
   
6. These Colonies have suffered patiently under a bad government like that for a long time. That’s why now they have to change the systems of government that used to rule them. The current King of Great Britain [George the Third] has been hurting people and taking things away from them for the whole time he has been king. He did these things to create a government of absolute tyranny over the United States. Here are some facts that will prove this to the world:
   
   
   • The king has refused to agree to laws that would have been good and important for all the people in the country.
   
   
   • The King said that the Governors of the states could not pass even extremely important and urgent laws until he had given them his permission. But even though the Governors really needed his permission to pass those laws, and even though they were waiting for his answer, the King never bothered to look at the laws and never sent an answer.
   
   
   • There were other laws that the King needed to pass that would have been helpful to large districts (areas/communities) of people. The King refused to pass those laws unless the people gave up their right to representation in the [British] Legislature. This right of representation is extremely important to the people, and only tyrants would feel threatened by people having the right to representation.
   
   
   • The King forced other law-making organizations to meet in places that were strange, uncomfortable, and far away from where their public records were kept. His only reason for doing this was to make the lawmakers so tired that they would go along with whatever he told them to do.
   
   
   • Multiple times, the King has forced groups of representatives that the people had elected to break up. He did this because these groups of representatives tried to fight back against him when he took away the people’s rights.
   
   
   • After he dissolved these groups of elected representatives, the King has blocked new elections for a long time. But people have the power to make their own laws, and no one can take away or destroy this power. Since the King won’t let the people elect representatives to make their laws, the power of making laws has returned to all the people, and now they can make their own laws if they want to. In the meantime, not having a legislature has put the country in danger: they could have been invaded by other countries, or they could have been hurt by political fighting inside the country.
   
   
   • The King has tried to stop the States from growing their population.
     • He has blocked laws that would have allowed foreigners to become citizens.
   
   
   • • He has refused to pass laws that would encourage foreigners to move to the States.
   
   
   • • He has made it more difficult for the States to get more land.
   
   
   • He has made it difficult to serve justice, because he has refused to agree to laws that would set up courts and appoint judges.
   
   
   • He has made judges depend on him, because only he decides how long they will be in office, and only he decides how much and how often they will get paid.
   
   
   • He has set up a lot of new offices (political jobs), and he has sent huge numbers of officers/officials here to bother our people and take away what they have.
   
   
   • Even though we were not at war, he has kept armies here in our country without permission from our lawmakers.
   
   
   • He has tried to set up the military as a separate power that doesn’t have to answer to our government (and that actually ranks higher than our government).
   
   
   • We know that he has worked with other people to force us to obey a system that has nothing to do with our country and that we do not accept. We know this because when people who had no right to tell us what to do tried to make laws for us, he supported those people and said we had to obey those laws:
     • Forcing our people to give large groups of armed soldiers food and places to stay [often in people’s homes]
   
   
   • • Holding fake trials that would protect those soldiers from being punished if they murdered people living here in these States
   
   
   • • Blocking us from trading/doing business with any other countries
   
   
   • • Taxing us without our permission
   
   
   • • Often taking away our chance for a trial by jury [meaning that people in the States might have to be judged directly by judges, who might be unfair or biased, instead of getting a jury trial]
   
   
   • • Taking us overseas to be put on trial for things we didn’t do or things that weren’t actually crimes
   
   
   • • Ending the English system of government that used to rule a neighboring territory [Quebec], setting up a random [French, Catholic] government there, and making the territory bigger. Now Quebec is an example of what will happen to us if England sets up the same kind of government here, and because it’s so much bigger now, it also gives them an easier way to come into our country and take away our freedoms.
   
   
   • • Taking away our charters [documents that gave colonies the official, legal right to exist], officially ending our most valuable laws, and completely changing our systems of government.
   
   
   • • Temporarily stopping our lawmakers from meeting, and saying that they [English lawmakers] have the power to make laws for us whenever they want to.
   
   
   • He has given up his right to rule over us, because 1) he has said that we’re not under his protection anymore and 2) he has started fighting against us.
   
   
   • He has stolen from our seas [his ships have attacked our ships], attacked and ruined our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
   
   
   • Right now, he is transporting large armies of paid foreign fighters to finish the work of killing us, ruining our country, and taking away our freedom. He has already started this “work” in such a cruel, deceitful way that you would hardly have seen anything like it at even the most barbaric times in history, and this is totally unworthy of the leader of a civilized country.
   
   
   • When our fellow citizens have been captured at sea, he has forced them to take weapons and fight against their own country, so they must either execute their own friends and relatives or be killed by them in battle.
   
   
   • He has set up people in our homeland to rebel and fight against us. [The British army encouraged people who had escaped from slavery to turn and fight with them  against the colonists.] He has also tried to recruit the people who live at the edges of our country: the “merciless Indian Savages” [I’m not translating that] who are known to always fight wars by killing everyone of every age, sex, and position in life. [The Declaration of Independence was mostly written by Thomas Jefferson, who kept more than 600 people enslaved and thought Native Americans should be forced to leave their culture and become like Europeans.]

Every time one of these cruel and unfair things was done to us, we have very humbly and formally asked the King to set things right. But he only answered us by hurting us again and again. A ruler like this, who has acted like a tyrant in every possible way, is not fit to be the ruler of a free nation.

And it’s not as if we haven’t shown enough care for our British brothers. We have warned them several times that their lawmakers were trying to give themselves more lawmaking power over us than they had the right to. We have reminded them why and how we moved here and settled here. We have asked them to listen to their own natural sense of justice and kindness. We have asked them sincerely, since we’re tied together by shared family and relatives, to speak out against what their lawmakers are doing, since those actions would definitely separate us and make it difficult for us to keep in touch with each other.

But the British people, too, have not listened to the voice of justice and shared blood. Because of this, we must accept that we will have to be separated. For us, the British people (like all other people) will now be enemies in times of war, friends in times of peace.

And so we, the Representatives of the United States of America, gathered together in a general meeting, asking the Supreme Judge of the world [God] to make sure that our intentions are right, solemnly publish and announce, in the name and with the permission of the good people of these Colonies:

1. That these United Colonies are, and should be by right, free and independent States;
2. That they no longer owe any allegiance at all to the British Crown, and that all the political connections between them and the country of Great Britain are (and should be) completely and permanently ended;
3. And that because they are free and independent states, they have full power to start wars, make peace treaties, form alliances, set up systems to buy and sell things, and do all other acts and things that Independent States have the right to do.

And to support this declaration (trusting firmly in God’s protection), we all promise to support each other with our lives, our money and belongings, and our sacred honor.

(Underneath this writing is a list of all the people who signed the Declaration of Independence. Each person is listed under the state they were representing.)