The Grievances
A Political Witness Document Dawna Raven | U.S. Army | U.S. Navy | Veteran
In 1776, the Second Continental Congress submitted to a candid world a specific list of charges against the King of Great Britain.
Jefferson wrote not as a philosopher but as a lawyer making a case. The language was exact. The intent was prosecutorial. The document that Americans call a declaration of independence was, at its functional core, a bill of particulars — a documented record of specific actions that had made self-governance impossible and revolution necessary.
“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.”
The facts submitted to that candid world were these:
He refused assent to laws necessary for the public good.
He made judges dependent on his will alone for their offices and salaries.
He rendered the military independent of and superior to civil power.
He subjected the people to jurisdiction foreign to their constitution and unacknowledged by their laws.
He deprived them of the benefits of trial by jury.
He took away their charters and altered fundamentally the forms of their governments.
He conditioned the right of representation on compliance with his demands.
And when the people petitioned for redress in the most humble terms, their petitions were answered only by repeated injury.
These were not abstract grievances. They were documented actions. They were specific. They were verifiable. And they were, the founders concluded, sufficient cause to dissolve the bonds that had connected them to the British Crown.
Two hundred and fifty years later, the facts submit themselves again. Not as history. As the present record.
“He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.”
The Congress of the United States appropriated the funds. The President signed the laws. The money was then withheld — $410 billion in congressionally authorized spending frozen, redirected, or cancelled without legislative approval.
The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1975 that a president has no authority to impound funds Congress has appropriated. Congress passed the Impoundment Control Act specifically to prevent it. Multiple federal courts have ruled the current impoundments unlawful. The administration continues.
When wildfires burned in Hawaii and floods consumed Oregon and Washington, states submitted requests for FEMA disaster relief that met every established federal threshold. A federal judge found the administration in breach of his own court order — ruling that at least 19 states presented undisputed evidence they were not receiving congressionally approved FEMA funding. The judge found the withholding was covertly based on the president’s immigration executive order, not on legitimate administrative review.
Internal communications showed the administration directing FEMA to prioritize payments to Republican-led states while other states waited.
The law was passed. The funds were appropriated. The people to whom they were owed went without.
“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices.”
Federal judges who ruled against the administration confronted a wave of threats potentially compromising their personal safety and the independence of the judiciary. Republican lawmakers proposed impeachment proceedings against judges who paused administration policies. The sister of a Supreme Court Justice received a bomb threat.
Of the 31 emergency requests the administration filed at the Supreme Court between February 2025 and March 2026, 97% claimed the lower court judge was improperly interfering with presidential power.
Former federal judge Paul Grimm stated directly: “If you try to intimidate judges so that they do not do their constitutional duty, you jeopardize the rule of law. And without the rule of law, every liberty and every right that we cherish as Americans is vulnerable.”
Jefferson identified this as the mechanism of tyranny in 1776.
“He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.”
Active duty military personnel were deployed to the southern border for domestic law enforcement operations. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was enacted by Congress specifically to restrict the use of federal military forces for civilian law enforcement. It exists because the founders understood — from direct experience — what it means when the military answers to the executive rather than to the law.
The law is clear about what this action implicates. That deployment is documented.
“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws.”
Executive orders directed the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security to withhold federal funding from cities and counties whose local laws declined to enforce federal immigration priorities. A federal judge ruled the orders were an unconstitutional “coercive threat,” finding they likely violated the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment — the prohibition on commandeering state and local officials to carry out federal duties.
Fifty jurisdictions representing millions of residents are currently in litigation. The court blocked the administration from withholding or freezing federal funding from any municipality based on its sanctuary status.
The Tenth Amendment was ratified in 1791, five years after the revolution that produced it. The colonists called this subjection to a jurisdiction foreign to their constitution. The courts call it unconstitutional.
“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.”
The Alien Enemies Act was written in 1798 for use in declared wartime against citizens of nations actively at war with the United States. The administration invoked it against Venezuelan migrants — not citizens of an enemy nation, not in a declared war — to deport them to a third country with no judicial hearing, no opportunity to contest the designation, no trial, no jury.
Federal courts issued orders blocking the deportations. The administration proceeded and publicly questioned whether courts had authority to review executive deportation decisions at all.
The right to contest government action before an independent court is not a procedural nicety. It is the foundational protection against arbitrary power. The colonists named its removal as cause for revolution.
“For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments.”
In March 2025, an executive order attempted to overhaul the nation’s election systems — requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, directing federal agencies to access state voter files, and threatening to withhold funds from states that did not comply. A federal court permanently blocked the voter registration provision, finding the president lacks authority to unilaterally alter election procedures — powers that rest with Congress and the states.
In March 2026, a second executive order directed the United States Postal Service to determine who may vote by mail and to refuse to deliver ballots to anyone not on newly created federal eligibility lists. It threatens criminal prosecution of state and local election officials for doing their jobs. The Brennan Center for Justice concluded: “The new executive order flatly violates the Constitution and federal law. Only states and Congress may set the rules for federal elections.”
If implemented, a show-your-papers requirement could block an estimated 21 million eligible American citizens from voting. The Constitution’s Elections Clause assigns authority over federal elections to state legislatures, with Congress — not the president — holding power to alter them. The executive orders attempted to transfer that authority to the presidency. The courts said no. The orders came anyway.
“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.”
This refusal takes the form of executive orders that bypass the very representatives the people have chosen. When the executive branch unilaterally decides which ballots will be delivered and which funds will be released, it is not merely ‘administering’—it is conditioning the benefits of citizenship on political compliance. It is, as the founders saw it, the dismantling of self-governance by a thousand executive cuts.
In July 2025, the president publicly stated that Republicans were “entitled” to five more congressional seats in Texas and additional seats in other Republican-led states. He directed states to redraw their congressional districts outside the normal ten-year census cycle — to prevent the possibility of losing control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections.
Texas complied. Missouri and North Carolina followed. A federal court ruled the Texas maps constituted an illegal racial gerrymander and barred their use in the 2026 elections.
The president’s word is in the record.
Entitled.
Jefferson called representation inestimable to the people and formidable to tyrants only. The president claimed entitlement to determine its outcome before the votes were cast.
“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.”
Congress passed the funding. Courts issued orders. Attorneys general filed suits. Governors appealed. Judges blocked. The administration impounded the money, challenged the courts, questioned whether any institution has authority to constrain the executive, and continued.
Jefferson wrote those words in 1776. They require no revision.
This is not a comparison constructed to make a political argument. These are the charges the founders named as justification for revolution. They are the actions of the current administration, documented in federal court records, congressional testimony, and the administration’s own public statements.
The nation that was born fighting these actions is now governed by them.
The people who rose against a king who did these things are still here.
We are still the people.
Dawna Raven | U.S. Army | U.S. Navy
|Virginia|
