people of Missouri territory to form a constitution and state government, and for the admission of such state into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, and to prohibit slavery in certain territories.

WHEREAS the act of congress of the United States of America, approved March the sixth, one thousand eight hundred and twenty, entitled "An act to authorize the people of Missouri territory to form a constitution and state government, and for the admission of such state into the Union, on an equal footing with the original states, and to prohibit slavery in certain territories," contains certain requisitions and provisions, and among other things, has offered to this convention, when formed, for and in behalf of the people inhabiting this state, for their free acceptance, or rejection, the five following propositions, and which, if accepted by this convention in behalf of the people as aforesaid, are to be obligatory on the United States, viz:

"Ist. That section numbered sixteen, in every township, and when such section has been sold, or otherwise disposed of, other lands equivalent thereto, and as contiguous as may be, shall be granted to the state, for the use of the inhabitants of such township, for the use of schools.

"2d. That all salt springs, not exceeding twelve in number, with six sections of land adjoining to each, shall be granted to the said state for the use of the said state, the same to be selected by the legislature of said state, on or before the first day of January, in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-five: and the same when so selected, to be used under such terms, conditions, and regulations, as the legislature of said state shall direct: Provided, that no salt spring, the right whereof now is, or hereafter shall be confirmed or adjudged to any individual or individuals, shall by this section be granted to said state; and provided also, that the legislature shall never sell nor lease the same, at any one time, for a longer period than ten years, without the consent of congress.

"3d. That five per cent. of the neat proceeds of the sale of lands lying within said territory or state, and which shall be sold by congress, from and after the first day of January next, after deducting all expense incident to the same, shall be reserved for making public roads and canals, of which three-fifths shall be applied to those objects within the state, under the direction of the legislature thereof, and the other twofifths in defraying, under the direction of congress, the expenses to be incurred in making of a road or roads, canal or canals, leading to the said state.

"4th. That four entire sections of land be, and the same are hereby granted to the said state, for the purpose of fixing their seat of government thereon; which said sections shall, under the direction of the legislature of said state, be located, as near as may be, in one body, at any time, in such townships and ranges as the legislature, aforesaid, may select, on any of the public lands of the United States: Provided, that such location shall be made prior to the public sale of the lands of the United States surrounding such location.

"5th. That thirty-six sections, or one entire township, which shall be designated by the president of the United States, together with the

other lands heretofore reserved for that purpose, shall be reserved for the use of a seminary of learning, and vested in the legislature of said state, to be appropriated solely for the use of such seminary, by the legislature."

Now, this convention, for and in behalf of the people inhabiting this state, and by the authority of the said people, do accept the five before recited propositions, offered by the act of congress under which they are assembled; and, in pursuance of the conditions, requisitions, and other provisions in the before recited act of congress contained, this convention, for and in behalf of the people inhabiting this state, do ordain, agree, and declare, that every and each tract of land sold by the United States, from and after the first day of January next, shall remain exempt from any tax laid by order or under the authority of the state, whether for state, county, or township, or any other purpose whatever, for the term of five years from and after the respective days of sale thereof And that the bounty lands granted, or hereafter to be granted, for mili tary services, during the late war, shall, while they continue to be held by the patentees or their heirs, remain exempt, as aforesaid, from taxation, for the term of three years from and after the date of the patents respectively: Provided, nevertheless, that if the congress of the United States shall consent to repeal and revoke the following clause in the fifth proposition of the sixth section of the act of congress before recited, and in these words, viz: "That every and each tract of land sold by the United States, from and after the first day of January next, shall remain exempt from any tax, laid by order, or under the authority of the state, whether for state, county, or township, or any other purpose whatever, for the term of five years from and after the day of sale, and further"-that this convention, for and in behalf of the people of the state of Missouri, do hereby ordain, consent, and agree, that the same be so revoked and repealed; without which consent of the congress as aforesaid, the said clause to remain in full force and operation as first above provided for in this ordinance: and this convention doth hereby request the congress of the United States so to modify their third proposition, that the whole amount of five per cent. on the sale of public lands therein offered, may be applied to the construction of roads and canals, and the promotion of education within this state, under the direction of the legislature thereof. And this convention, for and in behalf of the people inhabiting this state, and by the anthority of the said people, do further ordain, agree, and declare, that this ordinance shall be irrevocable, without the consent of the United States.

Done in convention, at St. Louis, in the state of Missouri, this nineteenth day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and twenty, and of the independence of the United States of America the forty-fifth.

By order of the convention :

DAVID BARTON, President.

Attest, Wm. G. PETTUS, Secretary.

APPENDIX.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

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 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 experience 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

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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 repository 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 of naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration 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 harass 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 as sent 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, an destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and 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 connexions 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 the 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 connexion 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