19 November—On the 161^st anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, we remind readers that twelve score and eight years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Lincoln was referring directly to the Declaration of Independence, of course. So let’s see just what he was talking about.

The Declaration of Independence certainly asserted the “self-evident truths” 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.” Let’s not quibble that the self-evident truths weren’t later embodied in the Constitution. Being self-evident, they didn’t have to be. Right?

So the Declaration went on to suggest “[t]hat 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.”

Skipping a few sentences: “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.”

The Declaration goes on to specify the “Facts [to] be submitted to a candid world”: “The history of the present King of Great Britain . . . of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”

The abuses include but are not limited to:

“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 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.”

As if that’s not enough, the tyrannical ruler is responsible:

“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

“For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments.”

The Declaration maintains that the nasty king “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.”

It’s obvious, then, that “[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.”

Sure, the Declaration of Independence is all about King George III. But consider its relevance today. Change a few words and it’s all about the once and future president, whom the Supreme Court has effectively elevated and transformed into an absolute monarch.

Kiss the republic goodbye . . .