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on delivery of said list, twenty-five cents for every mile of the estimated distance, by the most usual route, from the place of meeting of the electors to the seat of Government of the United States, going and returning.

SEc. 2. And be it further enacted, That this act shall take effect from the first of November, eighteen hundred and twenty-four. Approved, February 11, 1825.

An ACT for the apportionment of Representatives among the several States according to the Sixth Census.

[SEC. 1.] Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the third day of March, one thousand eight hundred and fortythree, the House of Representatives shall be composed of members elected agreeably to a ratio of one Representative for every seventy thousand six hundred and eighty persons in each State, and of one additional representative for each State having a fraction greater than one moiety of the said ratio, computed according to the rule prescribed by the Constitution of the United States; that is to say: Within the State of Maine, seven; within the State of New Hampshire, four; within the State of Massachusetts, ten; within the State of Rhode Island, two; within the State of Connecticut, four; within the State of Vermont, four; within the State of New York, thirty-four; within the State of New Jersey, five; within the State of Pennsylvania, twenty-four; within the State of Delaware, one; within the State of Maryland, six; within the State of Virginia, fifteen ; within the State of North Carolina, nine; within the State of South Carolina, seven; within the State of Georgia, eight; within the State of Alabama, seven; within the State of Louisiana, four; within the State of Mississippi, four; within the State of Tennessee, eleven; within the State of Kentucky, ten; within the State of Ohio, twenty-one; within the State of Indiana, ten; within the State of Illinois, seven; within the State of Missouri, five; within the State of Arkansas, one; and within the State of Michigan, three.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That in every case where a

State is entitled to more than one Representative, the number to which each State shall be entitled under this apportionment shall be elected by districts composed of contiguous territory equal in number to the number of Representatives to which said State may be entitled, no one district electing more than one Representative.

Approved, June 25th, 1842.

An ACT to establish a uniform time for holding elections for electors of President and Vice President in all the States of the Union.

[SEC. 1.] Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed in each State on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in the month of November of the year in which they are to be appointed. Provided, That each State may by law provide for the filling of any vacancy or vacancies which may occur in its college of electors when such college meets to give its electoral vote. And provided, also, when any State shall have held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and shall fail to make a choice on the day aforesaid, then the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such manner as the State shall by law provide. Approved, January 23d, 1845.

CHAPTER V.

The Declaration of Independence, by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled.

THURSDAY, July 4, 1776.

Agreeably to the order of the day, the Congress resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole, to take into their farther consideration the Declaration; and after some time the President resumed the Chair, and Mr. Harrison reported that the committee had agreed to a Declaration, which they desired him to report.

The Declaration being read, was agreed to as follows:

A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled.

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 a 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 ex perience hath shown, 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 danger of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners;

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