Tag: American Revolution

The Declaration Signing

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION PARTY CHAIRMAN
Justin Magill

The Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. It was engrossed on parchment and on August 2, 1776, delegates began signing it.

On August 2nd John Hancock, the President of the Congress, signed the engrossed copy with a bold signature. The other delegates, following custom, signed beginning at the right with the signatures arranged by states from northernmost New Hampshire to southernmost Georgia. Although all delegates were not present on August 2nd, 56 delegates eventually signed the document. Late signers were Elbridge Gerry, Oliver Wolcott, Lewis Morris, Thomas McKean, and Matthew Thornton, who was unable to place his signature with the other New Hampshire delegates due to a lack of space. Some delegates, including Robert R. Livingston of New York, a member of the drafting committee, never signed the Declaration.

(NOTE: There is only one handwritten, signed Declaration of Independence; It is on display in the National Archives in Washington D.C.)

National Archives

Visit the Signers of the Declaration page on our website to find out more about the Signers.

Read the full text of the original Constitution below:

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.

Georgia

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

George Walton

Massachusetts

John Adams

Samuel Adams

Elbridge Gerry

John Hancock

Robert Treat Paine

Pennsylvania

George Clymer

Benjamin Franklin

Robert Morris

John Morton

George Ross

Benjamin Rush

James Smith

George Taylor

James Wilson

New Jersey

Abraham Clark

John Hart

Francis Hopkinson

Richard Stockton

John Witherspoon

North Carolina

Joseph Hewes

William Hooper

John Penn

Maryland

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Samuel Chase

William Paca

Thomas Stone

Delaware

Thomas McKean

George Read

Caesar Rodney

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett

Matthew Thornton

William Whipple

Rhode Island

William Ellery

Stephen Hopkins

South Carolina

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Arthur Middleton

Edward Rutledge

Virginia

Carter Braxton

Benjamin Harrison

Thomas Jefferson

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Richard Henry Lee

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

George Wythe

New York

William Floyd

Francis Lewis

Philip Livingston

Lewis Morris

Connecticut

Samuel Huntington

Roger Sherman

William Williams

Oliver Wolcott

August 2, 2026
What was the Boston Non-importation Agreement?

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION PARTY CHAIRMAN
Justin Magill

In response to the Townshend Acts, the Boston merchants and traders got together to boycott goods imported from Great Britain. The Townshend Revenue Act, required a tax to be paid for the purchase of glass, lead, oil, paint, paper, and tea. The non-importation agreement pushed Bostonians, and the surrounding areas, towards self-sufficiency; a characteristic that would prove invaluable throughout the American Revolution.

The American Colonies began heavy smuggling operations that took the bottom out of British merchant’s profits. These efforts, and the losses caused by them, ultimately led the Parliament to repeal the Townshend Acts.

Boston Non-Importation Agreement, August 1, 1768

The merchants and traders in the town of Boston, having taken into consideration the deplorable situation of the trade and the many difficulties it at present labours under on account of the scarcity of money, which is daily decreasing for want of the other remittances to discharge our debts in Great Britain, and the large sums collected by the officers of the customs for duties on goods imported; the heavy taxes levied to discharge the debts contracted by the government in the late war; the embarrassments and restrictions laid on the trade by the several late Acts of Parliament; together with the bad success of our cod fishery this season, and the discouraging prospect of the whale fishery, by which our principal sources of remittances are like to be greatly diminished, and we thereby rendered unable to pay the debts we owe the merchants in Great Britain, and to continue the importation of goods from thence:

We, the subscribers, in order to relieve the trade under those discouragements, to promote industry, frugality, and economy, and to discourage luxury and every kind of extravagance, do promise and engage to and with each other as follows:

That we will not send or import from Great Britain this fall, either on our own account, or on commission, any other goods than what are already ordered for the fall supply.

That we will not send for or import any kind of goods or merchandise from Great Britain, either on our own account, or on commissions, or any otherwise, from January 1, 1769, to January 1, 1770, except salt, coals, fish-hooks and lines, hemp, duck, bar lead and shot, wool-cards, and card-wire.

That we will not purchase of any factors, or others, any kind of goods imported from Great Britain from January 1, 1769, to January 1, 1770. That we will not import on our own account, or on commission, or Purchase from any Who shall import from any other colony in America, from January 1, 1769, to January 1, 1770, any tea, glass, paper, or other goods commonly imported from Great Britain.

That we will not, from and after January 1, 1769, import into the province any tea, paper, glass, or painters’ colours, until the Acts imposing duties on these articles have been repealed.

The Avalon Project

August 1, 2026
From the Lyon’s Mouth. War an Ode.

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION PARTY CHAIRMAN
Justin Magill

The Pennsylvania Ledger: Or the Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, & New-Jersey Weekly Advertiser

Printed by James Humphreys, Jr.

POET’s CORNER.

15 June 1776

From the Lyon’s Mouth.
WAR an ODE.

ON all these dreary plains,
There yet a sorrowing Muse remains,
Who has seen with weeping eye,
These former domes of love and joy,
Happiness, contentment, case,
And Freedom cloth’d in robes of peace,
Where the Graces us’d to play,
Now fallen desolation’s prey;

With her I’ll view the scene of blood
And destruction, that pursued
The tracts of Mars, stern God of war,
When, riding in his brazen car;
Drawn by horses swift as wind,
With all the furies close behind,
And civil discord in his train
He took his way o’er heaps of slain.

First, shrouded in the veil of night,
To Lexington we’ll take our flight.
Borne on fancy’s rapid pinions,
Swift I fly through liquid regions,
Already do I see the ground
On which, her brows with cypress bound,
Britain’s genius mournful view’d
Her children shed each other’s blood.

Sudden darkness round is spread,
Hark! What roaring peals of thunder!
See the forked lightning fly!
The bodies of the mighty dead,
Their icy bands have burst assunder,
And, in silent majesty,
Rising from their tomb,
Stalk along the awful gloom.

Oh! from this more than deepest night
Quickly let us take our flight;
Swift as thought, convey’d through air,
I stand on Abr’am’s fatal plain,
Soft pity sheds a tender tear,
To think how many heroes, slain,
In the pride of youthful bloom,
On this spot have found a tomb.

Ah me! what hosts in dread array
Towards yonder City bend their way.
Hark! the angry cannons sound;
Nought but flame and smoak is seen,
Streams of blood bedew the ground,
Alas! how horrid is the scene.

Here the Son, his Parent’s pride,
The only comfort of their age,
On the field all crimson dy’d,
Feels the Tyrant’s keenest rage,
Here the bleeding Father lies,
His Widow’s and his Orphan’s cries
Assault his dying ear,
And fills his soul with deep despair.

Here the Patriot bends beneath
His wounds all honest on the breast,
He feels the approaching hand of death,
And with groaning sinks to rest,
That eye is clos’d in endless night
Which late flash’d terror round,
The arm so terrible in fight
Now helpless lies upon the ground.

Here the Lover seeking fame,
Meets a glorious death;
While his much lov’d Mistress’s name
Sounds upon his last breath.
Be calm, my tortur’d Soul, he cries,
Ye boisterous winds your raging cease,
Least my dreary, mournful sighs
Wound my fair Amanda’s peace.

But let some gentle breathing Zephyr,
In the softest, tenderest whisper,
Convey the tidings to her ear;
The drop, if she does drop a tear
Oh! let some little Cherub save,
And borne on pity’s downy wing,
The pearly treasure bring,
And cast it on my grave.

Most happy men! your troubles cease,
Your souls are fled to realms of peace;
Beyond a cruel Monarch’s power,
In some blest Elysian Bower,
Where bloody Tyrants ne’er can come;
Perhaps ye read your Country’s doom.
Oh! say, will never peace return?
Ah! are we ever doom’d to mourn?

Self whisp’ring reason tells me no,
Our sorrows soon will cease to flow;
Peace again will bless this shore,
Smiling Freedom will return,
And horrid war no more
Shall cause this land to mourn.
The Almighty’s self will interpose
This scene of blood to close.

Read More:

Declaration Stories

June 17, 2026
The Committee of Five

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION PARTY CHAIRMAN
Justin Magill

“If ever the Time should come, when vain and aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experienced Patriots to prevent its Ruin.”

Samuel Adams

On June 11, 1776, the Continental Congress selected five men to serve on a committee for drafting a Declaration of Independence in accordance with the resolves proposed by Richard Henry Lee. The Committee of Five, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, were chosen for this task.

The Committee of Five discussed the structure it should follow, then asked Thomas Jefferson, the Virginian, to prepare a draft of the declaration. Thomas Jefferson’s first draft was then discussed and minor edits made by the committee.

The Committee of Five would present their proposed declaration to the Continental Congress on June 28, 1776.

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 British 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.

June 11, 2026
The Lee Resolves

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION PARTY CHAIRMAN
Justin Magill

“If ever the Time should come, when vain and aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experienced Patriots to prevent its Ruin.”

Samuel Adams

On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee proposed several resolves in the Continental Congress. These resolves set the stage for the American Colonies to finally separate from Great Britain. And while the Continental Congress did not immediately vote on Lee’s resolves, after some discussion it did move forward with appointing three committees (one for each piece of the resolves) to begin constructing the documents required by the resolves.

Many delegates to the Continental Congress wanted to correspond with the legislatures that sent them, to get instructions on how to proceed. The delegates were generally agreed that this was the only recourse left to the Colonies, but things needed to proceed in an orderly, legal fashion.

The resolves by Lee were clear and clean as to independence and as to the next steps to take.

Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right 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.

That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances.

That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.

250 years later, as the cycle of human events has once again turned away from the hard-won liberty of America’s Revolution, the Constitution Party National Committee took a stand against a different form of tyranny and passed the Resolution of 2026.

16 May 2026, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Resolution to Separate from the Tyranny of the Democratic and Republican Parties

Whereas the Democratic and Republican parties have manipulated the political systems in the United States and created a UNIPARTY to gain and maintain power and control over the rights of Citizens to further their own agenda;

Whereas the UNIPARTY has pitted Citizens against each other for the purposes of fundraising and political theater, disturbing the domestic tranquility of the nation;

Whereas, the UNIPARTY has consistently put the interests of corporate entities before the rights of the Citizens;

Whereas the UNIPARTY has made claims of owning our votes and has used psyops to indoctrinate the public into believing that voting for someone not approved by the UNIPARTY is wrong and harmful.

Whereas the UNIPARTY no longer represents We the People, nor protects our rights;

Be it Resolved, That we Citizens and Voters are, and have a right to be, free and independent in our voting, that we are absolved from all allegiance to the UNIPARTY, and that all political connection between them and the Citizens and Voters of these united States is, and ought to be, totally dissolved to maintain our constitutional governance.

Therefore, the Constitution Party calls on We the People to declare their independence by renouncing their loyalty to the UNIPARTY.

June 7, 2026
What Is the Quartering Act?

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION PARTY CHAIRMAN
Justin Magill

“If ever the Time should come, when vain & aspiring Men shall possess the highest Seats in Government, our Country will stand in Need of its experienced Patriots to prevent its Ruin.”

Samuel Adams

The British troops were a regular fixture in the American Colonies leading up to the Revolution. During the period known as the French and Indian Wars, the colonies were asked to support the troops with supplies and housing when needed. Most colonists did not complain about the burden during the fighting, however, after the war ended, the troops remained in the colonies.

Keeping up troops during a time of peace became more of a bone of contention as time went on. In 1765 Parliament passed a Quartering Act requiring the Colonies to provide barracks and supplies for the troops kept in their midst. In 1774, Parliament passed a Quartering Act giving British authorities the right to secure housing and supplies for the troops without waiting for barracks. This allowed troops to be moved into a city quickly and made it more difficult for local authorities to keep troops to the outskirts of town.

Colonists felt first-hand the oppression of having troops kept up for enforcing government dictates on the people. There were even instances of violence brought on by these heavy-handed measures; the most famous of which was called the Boston Massacre where five were killed and three were injured.

The speech by Dr. Benjamin Rush on the fifth anniversary of the Boston Massacre gives us the feelings of the colonists during this time:

“but you will permit me to say that with a sincerity equal to theirs I mourn over my bleeding country: with them I weep at her distress, and with them deeply resent the many wrongs which she has suffered from the hands of cruel and ungodly men.

That personal freedom is the natural right of every man; and that property, or an exclusive right to dispose of what he has honestly acquired by his own labor, necessarily results therefrom, are truths which none but knaves and fools will venture to deny.”

Provocation by Great Britain:

Parliament. The Quartering Act of June 2, 1774

An act for the better providing suitable quarters for officers and soldiers in his Majesty’s service in North America.

WHEREAS doubts have been entertained, whether troops can be quartered otherwise than in barracks, in case barracks have been provided sufficient for the quartering of all officers and soldiers within any town, township, city, district, or place, within his Majesty’s dominions in North America: And whereas it may frequently happen, from the situation of such barracks, that, if troops should be quartered therein, they would not be stationed where their presence may be necessary and required: be it therefore enacted by the King’s most excellent majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the lords spiritual and temporal, and commons, in this present parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, That, in such cases, it shall and may be lawful for the persons who now are, or may be hereafter, authorised be law, in any of the provinces within his Majesty’s dominions in North America, and they are hereby respectively authorised, impowered, and directed, on the requisition of the officer who, for the time being, has the command of his Majesty’s forces in North America, to cause any officers or soldiers in his Majesty’s service to be quartered and billetted in such manner as is now directed by law, where no barracks are provided by the colonies.

II. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That if it shall happen at any time that any officers or soldiers in his Majesty’s service shall remain within any of the said colonies without quarters, for the space of twenty-four hours after such quarters shall have been demanded, it shall and may be lawful for the governor of the province to order and direct such and so many uninhabited houses, out-houses, barns, or other buildings, as he shall think necessary to be taken, (making a reasonable allowance for the same), and make fit for the reception of such officers and soldiers, and to put and quarter such officers and soldiers therein, for such time as he shall think proper.

III. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That this act, and every thing herein contained, shall continue and be in force, in all his Majesty’s dominions in North America, until the twenty-fourth day of March, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-six.

Colonial Response:

The Declaration of Independence

Among the list of Offenses committed by the King –

“For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:”

The Founders Solution:

U.S. Constitution, Amendment III

“No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”

“The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought.”

Samuel Adams

June 2, 2026
Remembering those who gave everything

Thomas Jefferson: “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? …The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION PARTY CHAIRMAN
Justin Magill

Captain Nathan Hale

There are many who gave their life in the American Revolution. One who met his demise in 1776 was Captain Nathan Hale. Hale was a schoolmaster who served with the militia during the early years of the war. When Washington needed information about Long Island, he requested several spies go behind enemy lines to obtain the information.

One of the volunteers who went on the spy mission for Washington was Captain Hale. During his time behind enemy lines, Hale was captured and sentenced to hang as a spy. It was reported that immediately prior to his hanging Hale said, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

April 19, 1775

British Regulars arrive at the green in Lexington to find militia standing across the green in parade formation in protest of the Regulars’ mission to confiscate guns and ammunition. When the militia began to withdraw from the field, shots were fired and men died.

Lexington Casualties: John Brown, Samuel Hadley, Caleb Harrington, Jonathan Harrington, Robert Munroe, Isaac Muzzey, Asahel Porter, and Jonas Parker.

Dr. Joseph Warren

Dr. Warren was an early supporter of independence working alongside the Sons of Liberty. Besides maintaining his medical practice, he worked to build up the militia and prepare it for the upcoming war. He worked with a spy network and received the information that British Regulars were going to arrest John Hancock and John Adams and march on Concord and sent Revere and Dawes out on their midnight rides.

Dr. Warren joined with the militia in chasing and hounding the Regulars back to Boston and was appointed Major General by the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. Dr. Warren was killed during the final attack on Breeds Hill.

Apart from his militia and medical work and his work with the spy ring, Dr. Warren was also elected President of 2nd Massachusetts Provincial Congress and served on the Massachusetts Committee of Safety. Dr. Warren wrote the Suffolk Resolves and was well-known for his speech on the anniversary of the Boston Massacre.

“We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

Benjamin Franklin

May 25, 2026
Reflecting on the Spirit of America

Constitution Party National Chairman
Justin Magill

Throughout this 250th Anniversary year, we challenge everyone to consider those who founded this country. Take a deep look; not just at the famous founders, but at the everyday men and women who made this country. There were folks working at every level of government to bring about this new understanding and new form of government.

These folks were independent and strong, deciding their future and making it happen. They literally carved new communities out of forest and wilderness. They started new businesses and discovered new resources. They aided each other and supported community.

Even those in States that were not of the original thirteen have their stories of the original settlors. Stories of self-reliance and resilience as they carved out large permanent communities in the rugged wilderness. Stories of heroes of self-governance and of the journey to Statehood.

We challenge you to look for these stories (they should be easy to find this year) and to take courage and inspiration from their journeys. We challenge you to look openly and honestly at our history and to learn from past mistakes. And above all, we challenge you to look at the things that made us a beacon of Liberty and Freedom and that created the phenomenon of the American Dream.

May 6, 2026
Party leaders demand unconditional submission to the supremacy of the DEMGOP

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION PARTY CHAIRMAN
Justin Magill

The DEMGOP isn’t interested in your problems or your opinions, only your votes

Election after election the Democratic and Republican politicians make promises and say the things their voters want to hear. And year after year, once the elections are over, the DEMGOP party takes more of our freedoms, more of our money, and more of our future.

They destroy the value of our currency while using insider trading to get rich. They bring more restrictions and more taxes. And all the while the national debt is climbing at an alarming and unmitigated rate.

It is time for our fellow citizens to wake up to the fact that there is no saving the two old dying parties. We must either resist them completely, or surrender unconditionally to them.

Dr. Emily Sneff’s Declaration Story for today bares out the same dilemma from the American Revolution.

Dunlap’s Pennsylvania Packet or the General Advertiser
Printed by John Dunlap

To the free and independent ELECTORS of the City of PHILADELPHIA.
Gentlemen,

WERE any words capable of expressing the importance of exerting yourselves to maintain the character I have addressed you by, I could wish from the bottom of my heart to find them and set them in due order before you. I tremble to reflect what a party there is in this city, who either in plain words or tantamount insinuations espouse the cause of tyranny. You have read their insidious publications: You have remarked their zeal for a reconciliation and re-union with Great-Britain on constitutional principles. This proposal, Gentlemen, is a mere phantom, a lure, a pitfal to catch you in. In the first place, no man ever did or can shew what this constitutional dependence on Great-Britain is, or can be, which will secure our liberties: And in the second place no terms have been, nor at all probably will be offered us, besides those of unconditional submission to the supremacy of the Parliament in all cases whatsoever. Certainly no better have appeared from the other side the water, and when pressed on the subject, the sticklers for reconciliation acknowledge they know of no other, and yet urge you to maintain our connexion with Great-Britain upon the best terms we can obtain. If such men are not advocates for absolute tyranny, I have no conception of the meaning of the words. To be commercially connected with our friends in Great-Britain would doubtless be very pleasing to us all; but to be subject to the destroyers of British as well as American Liberty, is what none but an ignorant slave, or an insidious tool, would propose and strive to persuade you.

The Constitution of this province is the Shiboleth of this very loyal party. Every sensible man must know that the King of Great-Britain had so material a share in the government of this province, that the legislative nor executive powers in it can proceed one ace without him; and well did a worthy Grand juror object to enquiring any thing respecting the Crown and Dignity of a man who has rendered the idea of a Crown detestable to the whole Western World. The Constitution is therefore (by the breach of royal faith in refusing to govern according to solemn compact with all his people) broken to pieces, and the Committee of Inspection were greatly right in proposing to call a Convention to take the state of the province into consideration. It is easy to judge from what quarter the proposal for a more equal representation at last came. It was concluded this manœuvre would have a tendency to quiet the people by taking one of the most unanswerable objections to the present administration out of their mouths. You cannot, however, forget that this partial redress was a very late one, and only conceded to prevent a radical reformation.

The Patriots, notwithstanding, persuaded themselves that in the then critical situation of affairs, it was best to acquiesce in a measure which they hoped would keep us united, rather than risque a dissension in the too violent opposition to rooted prejudices, which was necessary to clear the way for the re-establishment of a real free Constitution, on the only firm basis of our Anglo Saxon ancestors. But remember, fellow citizens, that in the transaction of May first, you are to consider yourselves as rather acting upon a renewed system, than with too scrupulous attention to any unreasonable custom that may have crept into your old one. On this head you will suffer me to be something particular. The custom has been to deny the right of voting to all persons who have come from Germany, &c. until they have been naturalized, and taken such oaths as men now-a-days much object to; and what seems peculiar to this city alone, all men below the estate of fifty pounds are precluded. Now I must profess myself of the Forester’s opinion, that every man in the country who manifests a disposition to venture his all for the defence of its Liberty, should have a voice in its Councils. Persons so abject as to have neither will nor sentiment of their own, are readily distinguished, and cannot give much trouble. Burgesses, according to the excellent author of an Historical Essay on the English Constitution, “were elected by every resident inhabitant that paid his shot, and bore his lot.” p. 28. This I will affirm is the ancient, free Constitution, which every honest man will venture his blood to restore. “There were three things,” says the same author in the next page, “essentially necessary to form a Saxon Government, which they applied to every case where a combined interest was concerned; and these were, a Court of Council, a Court of Law, and a Chief Magistrate. A Court of Council, to consider what was for the benefit of the whole society.” Now such a Court of Council can hardly be expected from a Qualification Law like that of Queen Ann, vesting the elective power only in the hands of the opulent. To such a pernicious partiality it is owing that the poor in England are loaded with Excises on the indispensible necessaries of life. Every man who pays his shot and bears his lot is naturally and constitutionally an Elector in a city: And more especially I will affirm, that every citizen who has armed and associated to defend the Commonwealth is, and should be an Elector; and every non-associator and stickler for dependency on the power that is now in actual depredation of our Rights, Liberties, and all that is dear to us, should be kept far from our Councils; and unless they very speedily mend their destructive manners, sent to the haunts of despotism, where they may mix with their congenial spirit:, and with all the gratification of his Infernal Majesty’s august Courtiers, solace themselves in constant contemplation of human misery.

An ELECTOR.

“But, pardon me, my fellow citizens, I know you want not zeal or fortitude. You will maintain your rights or perish in the generous struggle. However, difficult the combat, you never will decline it when freedom is the prize.”

Dr. Joseph Warren ~ Delivered at Boston, 6 March 1775

JOIN THE FIGHT

SUPPORT THE CAUSE OF LIBERTY

April 30, 2026
Who Did The Colonists Fight the American Revolution For

NATIONAL CONSTITUTION PARTY CHAIRMAN
Justin Magill

Patrick Henry, one of the most well-known of our Founding Fathers, recognized early on what was at issue with British rule in the colonies.

In the 1763 Parson’s Cause dispute, Henry outlined the limits of King and Parliament’s authority in the colonies and the right to self-rule.

When the Stamp act was passed in 1765, Henry proposed five resolutions in the House of Burgess that affirmatively declared the right of the colonies to self-govern, and the limits of King and Parliament.

As things with England deteriorated over the next decade, Patrick Henry continued to be outspoken about the rights of the colonists being abused by British government. When things in Boston and throughout the northeast were reaching crisis in 1775, the Second Virginia Convention met. Patrick Henry proposed a plan of military preparedness for the inevitable war ahead.

Henry’s foresight was met with pushback by those who wanted to hold out for a peaceful resolution to the conflict with England. It is at this juncture that Patrick Henry’s famous “Give me liberty or give me death” speech swayed the majority and helped prepare Virginia for what followed shortly thereafter. It is arguably the tipping point where all of the colonies started to become resolute in their preparations for the war ahead.

Patrick Henry’s call to support the other colonies under attack by the British demonstrates the understanding that he had that they must fight for each other if any of them were going to succeed.

“The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle?”

If we are to succeed in our cause to bring liberty back to these united States, we must be mindful that we are fighting for all our fellow Citizens and for our posterity. And we need to understand that we must be active now; to delay may be too late.

Patrick Henry gave his historic speech at Saint John’s Church on March 23, 1775.

“Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

Will you join us?

“But pardon me, my fellow citizens, I know you want not zeal or fortitude. You will maintain your rights or perish in the generous struggle. However, difficult the combat, you never will decline it when freedom is the prize.”

Dr. Joseph Warren, Boston, 6 March 1775

Join the Fight

Support the Restoration of Liberty

Read Patrick Henry’s famous speech, as reported by William Wirt. Delivered at the Second Virginia Convention, 23 March 1775.

March 23, 2026