MetroDetroit
04-04-2004, 04:48
Mayor Hill of the City of Detroit Announced today that the City is declaring its independence.
Mayor Hill stood by silently as members of the city council voted that he assume the office of president as he is already the highest elected official in the city.
The declaration came in the wake of several years of federal and state neglect to problems facing the Metro Detroit area.
President Hill said "Our roads are delapidated, crime is out of control, industry flees tothe suburbs and the very offices of the state and federal government who are in place to help with these problems tie our hands in red tape and bury us in a quagmire of beuracracy so that no progress can be made to better the city. No more, today the Metro Detroit area is now an independent Nation, we will solve our own problems.
Detroiters will finally have a home to be proud of, because we will all work to make it that way."
The official Declaration sent to both the State and federal governments reads as such:
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.
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 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.
The federal and state government have refused assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
The federal and state government have 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 their measures.
The federal and state government have erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
The federal and state government have combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving their assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
1.For imposing taxes on us without our consent
2.For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial
3.For abolishing the free system of common laws in a neighboring 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 this city
4.For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments
5.For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
They have plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, razed our industry, and destroyed the lives of our people.
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. Acting as princes, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the rulers of a free people.
We, therefore, the representatives of the Armed Republic of Metro Detroit, 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 this city solemnly publish and declare, That city is, and of right ought to be, A FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATE; that it is absolved from all allegiance to the federal and state government and that all political connection between them is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as a free and independent state, we have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Mayor
Gill Hill [President]
City Council [Congress]
Maryann Mahaffey
Kenneth V. Cockrel, Jr.
Sharon McPhail
Sheila M. Cockrel
Alberta Tinsley-Talabi
Kay Everett
Barbara-Rose Collins
Alonzo W. Bates
JoAnn Watson
Mayor Hill stood by silently as members of the city council voted that he assume the office of president as he is already the highest elected official in the city.
The declaration came in the wake of several years of federal and state neglect to problems facing the Metro Detroit area.
President Hill said "Our roads are delapidated, crime is out of control, industry flees tothe suburbs and the very offices of the state and federal government who are in place to help with these problems tie our hands in red tape and bury us in a quagmire of beuracracy so that no progress can be made to better the city. No more, today the Metro Detroit area is now an independent Nation, we will solve our own problems.
Detroiters will finally have a home to be proud of, because we will all work to make it that way."
The official Declaration sent to both the State and federal governments reads as such:
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.
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 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.
The federal and state government have refused assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
The federal and state government have 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 their measures.
The federal and state government have erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
The federal and state government have combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving their assent to their acts of pretended legislation:
1.For imposing taxes on us without our consent
2.For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial
3.For abolishing the free system of common laws in a neighboring 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 this city
4.For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments
5.For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
They have plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, razed our industry, and destroyed the lives of our people.
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. Acting as princes, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the rulers of a free people.
We, therefore, the representatives of the Armed Republic of Metro Detroit, 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 this city solemnly publish and declare, That city is, and of right ought to be, A FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATE; that it is absolved from all allegiance to the federal and state government and that all political connection between them is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as a free and independent state, we have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
Mayor
Gill Hill [President]
City Council [Congress]
Maryann Mahaffey
Kenneth V. Cockrel, Jr.
Sharon McPhail
Sheila M. Cockrel
Alberta Tinsley-Talabi
Kay Everett
Barbara-Rose Collins
Alonzo W. Bates
JoAnn Watson