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Fellow-citizens, | Fellow-citizens, | ||
When a people find | When a people find themselves invariably exposed to a succession of systematic oppressions, in spite of their wishes expressed in all the ways that are recognized by constitutional customs, through public meetings and their representatives in Parliament after a serious deliberation; when their rulers, instead of rectifying the various evils that they themselves produced through their bad government, have solemnly recorded and proclaimed their guilty determination to sap and overthrow to the very foundations of civil liberty, it imperiously becomes the duty of the people to seriously apply themselves to the consideration of their unhappy position, - the dangers which surround them, - and, by way of a well-combined organization, to make the arrangements necessary to keep intact their [[Wikipedia:Civil rights|citizens rights]] and their dignity as free men. | ||
[[Image:Usa-declaration-of-independence.jpg|thumb|The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, July 4th, 1776. (Nova Scotia and Quebec were respectively the 14th and 15th British American provinces)]]The wise and immortal authors of the [[Wikipedia:American Declaration of Independence|AMERICAN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE]], recorded in this document the principles on which the [[Wikipedia:Human rights|rights of man]] are solely founded and demanded and successfully established the institutions and the form of government which alone can permanently insure the prosperity and the social happiness of the inhabitants of this continent, whose education and mores, resulting from the circumstances of their colonization, require a system of government entirely dependent upon the people and which is directly responsible to them. In common with the various nations of North and South America that adopted the principles contained in this Declaration, we regard the doctrines they encapsulate as sacred and evident: That God did not create any artificial distinctions between man and man; that the government is just a simple human institution formed by those who must be subject to its action good or bad; and consecrated for the advantage of all those who will consent to come or remain under its protection and under its control, and that consequently its form can be changed as soon as it ceases to accomplish the ends for which this government was established; that the public authorities and the men in power are but the executors of the wishes legitimately expressed by the community; honoured when they possess the public trust, and respected for as long as they enjoy public esteem, and who must be removed from power as soon as they cease to provide satisfaction to the people, the sole legitimate source of all powers. | [[Image:Usa-declaration-of-independence.jpg|thumb|The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America, July 4th, 1776. (Nova Scotia and Quebec were respectively the 14th and 15th British American provinces)]]The wise and immortal authors of the [[Wikipedia:American Declaration of Independence|AMERICAN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE]], recorded in this document the principles on which the [[Wikipedia:Human rights|rights of man]] are solely founded and demanded and successfully established the institutions and the form of government which alone can permanently insure the prosperity and the social happiness of the inhabitants of this continent, whose education and mores, resulting from the circumstances of their colonization, require a system of government entirely dependent upon the people and which is directly responsible to them. In common with the various nations of North and South America that adopted the principles contained in this Declaration, we regard the doctrines they encapsulate as sacred and evident: That God did not create any artificial distinctions between man and man; that the government is just a simple human institution formed by those who must be subject to its action good or bad; and consecrated for the advantage of all those who will consent to come or remain under its protection and under its control, and that consequently its form can be changed as soon as it ceases to accomplish the ends for which this government was established; that the public authorities and the men in power are but the executors of the wishes legitimately expressed by the community; honoured when they possess the public trust, and respected for as long as they enjoy public esteem, and who must be removed from power as soon as they cease to provide satisfaction to the people, the sole legitimate source of all powers. | ||
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Though we are universally in agreement on the justice of our requests, the wisdom and the prudence there is to remedy our evils, still today we bare the unbearable burden of an irresponsible Executive under the command of an ignorant and hypocritical chief. Our judges depend as a condition attached to their commission, on the sole will and pleasure of the Crown, judges who are almost all violent partisans of a corrupt administration, and more absolutely are the mercenary instruments of the Executive, in accepting, in violation of every principle of judiciary independence, wages for their servility to a foreign authority, without the consent of the people, which is the sole barer, through the intermediary of their representatives, of the exclusive right to vote the salaries of public servants; the men in office in this province devour, by their so extravagant salaries that they deprive us of the funds needed for the general improvement of the country which results in our public works being stopped and the navigation of our rivers continuing to be obstructed; a Legislative Council appointed by men a thousand leagues away from the country, and systematically composed in a manner suited to paralyse and destroy the efforts of our freely chosen representatives, in all measures designed to promote the public good after remaining unchanged under the current administration, depriving in this the country of the advantages of an interior legislation, has finally been modified in a manner that is insulting to all classes of society, disgracious for public morality, and which annihilates the respect and confidence of all parties for this branch of the legislature, following the introduction of men in the majority notorious only by their incapacity, and remarkable in the same way by their political insignificance, thus making obvious, to the point of demonstration even, to everyone, whatever their preconceived ideas, the convenience and the urgent need to introduce the principle of election into this body, as the only suitable method to place the provincial legislature in a position to advantageously carry out the conduct of public affairs. | Though we are universally in agreement on the justice of our requests, the wisdom and the prudence there is to remedy our evils, still today we bare the unbearable burden of an irresponsible Executive under the command of an ignorant and hypocritical chief. Our judges depend as a condition attached to their commission, on the sole will and pleasure of the Crown, judges who are almost all violent partisans of a corrupt administration, and more absolutely are the mercenary instruments of the Executive, in accepting, in violation of every principle of judiciary independence, wages for their servility to a foreign authority, without the consent of the people, which is the sole barer, through the intermediary of their representatives, of the exclusive right to vote the salaries of public servants; the men in office in this province devour, by their so extravagant salaries that they deprive us of the funds needed for the general improvement of the country which results in our public works being stopped and the navigation of our rivers continuing to be obstructed; a Legislative Council appointed by men a thousand leagues away from the country, and systematically composed in a manner suited to paralyse and destroy the efforts of our freely chosen representatives, in all measures designed to promote the public good after remaining unchanged under the current administration, depriving in this the country of the advantages of an interior legislation, has finally been modified in a manner that is insulting to all classes of society, disgracious for public morality, and which annihilates the respect and confidence of all parties for this branch of the legislature, following the introduction of men in the majority notorious only by their incapacity, and remarkable in the same way by their political insignificance, thus making obvious, to the point of demonstration even, to everyone, whatever their preconceived ideas, the convenience and the urgent need to introduce the principle of election into this body, as the only suitable method to place the provincial legislature in a position to advantageously carry out the conduct of public affairs. | ||
Our municipalities are entirely destroyed; the rural areas of this province, forming a disgracious contrast with the other parts of this continent, are absolutely deprived of any power to regulate, in a municipal capacity, their local affairs, by the means of freely elected parish and township officers; the upcoming generation is deprived of the benefit of education, primary schools providing educations to 40 000 children were closed by the Legislative Council, body hostile to the progress of useful knowledge, and incited to act in this way by an executive opposed to the dissemination of general knowledge among the people; - the [[Jesuit college]], founded and endowed with by the foreseeing government which colonized this province, for the encouragement and the diffusion of knowhow and science, has, with a barbarity unworthy of the governors of a civilized state, disgraciously for the enlightened century in which we live and that is with comparison even among the Goths and the Vandals, converted into barracks, and is still retained for such usage today by an army rabble, while the funds and properties dedicated to the maintenance of this building and other such institutions have been and continue to be wasted and badly administered, for the | Our municipalities are entirely destroyed; the rural areas of this province, forming a disgracious contrast with the other parts of this continent, are absolutely deprived of any power to regulate, in a municipal capacity, their local affairs, by the means of freely elected parish and township officers; the upcoming generation is deprived of the benefit of education, primary schools providing educations to 40 000 children were closed by the Legislative Council, body hostile to the progress of useful knowledge, and incited to act in this way by an executive opposed to the dissemination of general knowledge among the people; - the [[Jesuit college]], founded and endowed with by the foreseeing government which colonized this province, for the encouragement and the diffusion of knowhow and science, has been, with a barbarity unworthy of the governors of a civilized state, disgraciously for the enlightened century in which we live and that is with comparison even among the Goths and the Vandals, converted into barracks, and is still retained for such usage today by an army rabble, while the funds and properties dedicated to the maintenance of this building and other such institutions have been and continue to be wasted and badly administered, for the advantages of the favourites, the creatures and the instruments of the government; our fellow citizens are deprived of the benefits of impartially chosen juries, and arbitrarily persecuted by officers of the Crown who, in order to meet the goals of the vindicative government of which they are the creatures, have exhumed proceedings of another age, and whose precedents we only find in the darkest pages of British history. Thus, our tribunals being soiled by the combined conspirations of a bad Executive, of servile judges, partisan law officers and political sheriffs, the innocent and the patriot are exposed to being sacrificed, while the enemies of the country and the violators of all the laws are protected and patronized depending on whether the administration wishes to crush and destroy or to save and protect. Our trade and our domestic industry are paralysed; our public lands alienated, for a nominal price, to a corporation of speculators, foreign to the country, or given out to insolent favourites as a reward for their servility; our money is extorted without our consent, in the form of taxes unconstitutionally imposed by a foreign Parliament and then converted into the instrument of our degradation, distributed as they are among a noisy gang of officials, against our will, without our participation, and in violation of all the principles of constitutional law. | ||
In the middle of their indefatigable and honest efforts to obtain the redress of the preceding grievances, our compatriots have been insolently called upon to justify their public conduct, of which they are responsible to no one and even less to the individual which luck or ministerial patronage placed for a time at the head of our provincial government. One has harassed and vexed them by forcing resignations to purely honorific positions, reserved for the advantage and at the requisition of their immediate neighbours, and that for having reclaimed the rights of their fatherland, as is suited to free men of America; and as a clue that one intends to push the aggression even further, armed troops are to be stationed, in a time of profound peace in all the extent of the country, with the goal of compressing by physical force the expression of public opinion, and to complete by the means of violence and blood shed our own ruin as is already decided across the seas. | In the middle of their indefatigable and honest efforts to obtain the redress of the preceding grievances, our compatriots have been insolently called upon to justify their public conduct, of which they are responsible to no one and even less to the individual which luck or ministerial patronage placed for a time at the head of our provincial government. One has harassed and vexed them by forcing resignations to purely honorific positions, reserved for the advantage and at the requisition of their immediate neighbours, and that for having reclaimed the rights of their fatherland, as is suited to free men of America; and as a clue that one intends to push the aggression even further, armed troops are to be stationed, in a time of profound peace in all the extent of the country, with the goal of compressing by physical force the expression of public opinion, and to complete by the means of violence and blood shed our own ruin as is already decided across the seas. |