The Fourth of July

Self-evident truths and an inestimable right still denied D.C.

BETWEEN ITS uplifting beginning ("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 . . . ") and its resolute conclusion (". . . we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor"), the Declaration of Independence contains a long list of allegations concerning King George of England that might be said to make up the bulk of the document.

On the opposite page today, John Fabian Witt of Columbia University lists some of the more lurid accusations against George III: He has "plundered our Seas," "ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People" and committed other acts "scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages."

But there is more, much more, most of it a good deal less compelling. At times it reads like the complaint of a good-government organization rather than an indictment of a bloody-minded tyrant. George III has, it is said, "refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good," "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," "called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records," "obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers" and "made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries" -- among many other things.

Clearly, despite all his faults, King George wasn't exactly Stalin in a powdered wig. Indeed, as with another middling monarch with III after his name, he's had to sacrifice much of his historical reputation to the interests of some very talented writers: Richard III to Shakespeare's desire to do a popular play and George III to the need of Thomas Jefferson and his co-conspirators to justify what was, in the English-speaking world, an alarming act of rebellion.

Fortunately, few schoolchildren memorize any of this list, and few Americans, young or old, are even aware of it. The nation's first founding document is remembered not for resentment, fears and ancient grudges but for the promise of opportunity and the guarantee of liberty. Its opening chords and its concluding pledge are still what bring people flowing into this country by the hundreds of thousands every year.

But while we're on the subject, there is one item on the indictment of the king that's worth recalling here: "He has refused to pass . . . 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."

By George, that is outrageous, but come to think of it, it's still going on today, here in the nation's capital, a large district of people with no voting representation in the House of Representatives or in the Senate. Somebody ought to send up a rocket or two.