文体学分析(7)

indictment of the king required proof. In keeping with the rhetorical conventions Englishmen had followed for centuries when dethroning a "tyrannical" monarch, the Declaration contains a bill of particulars documenting the king's "repeated injuries and usurpations" of the Americans' rights and liberties. The bill of particulars lists twenty-eight specific grievances and is introduced with the shortest sentence of the Declaration. In order to prove this [the king's tyranny], let Facts be submitted to a candid world. This sentence is so innocuous one can easily overlook its artistry and importance. The opening phrase--"To prove this"--indicates the "facts" to follow will indeed prove that George III is a tyrant. But prove to whom? To a "candid world"that is, to readers who are free from bias or malice, who are fair, impartial, and just. The implication is that any such reader will see the "facts" as demonstrating beyond doubt that the king has sought to establish an absolute tyranny in America. If a reader is not convinced, it is not because the "facts" are insufficient to prove the king's villainy; it is because the reader is not "candid."

(8)The pivotal word in the sentence, though, is "facts." As a term in eighteenth-century jurisprudence (Jefferson, like many of his colleagues in Congress, was a lawyer), it meant the circumstances and incidents of a legal case, looked at apart from their legal meaning. This usage fits with the Declaration's similarity to a legal declaration, he plaintiff's written statement of charges showing a "plain and certain" indictment against a