“We herewith proclaim the independence of Korea and the liberty of the Korean people.  We tell it to the world in witness of the equality of all nations and we pass it on to our posterity as their inherent right.

“We make this proclamation, having back of us 5,000 years of history, and 20,000,000 of a united loyal people.  We take this step to insure to our children for all time to come, personal liberty in accord with the awakening consciousness of this new era.  This is the clear leading of God, the moving principle of the present age, the whole human race’s just claim.  It is something that cannot be stamped out, or stifled, or gagged, or suppressed by any means.

“Victims of an older age, when brute force and the spirit of plunder ruled, we have come after these long thousands of years to experience the agony of ten years of foreign oppression, with every loss to the right to live, every restriction of the freedom of thought, every damage done to the dignity of life, every opportunity lost for a share in the intelligent advance of the age in which we live.

“Assuredly, if the defects of the past are to be rectified, if the agony of the present is to be unloosed, if the future oppression is to be avoided, if thought is to be set free, if right of action is to be given a place, if we are to attain to any way of progress, if we are to deliver our children from the painful, shameful heritage, if we are to leave blessing and happiness intact for those who succeed us, the first of all necessary things is the clear-cut independence of our people.  What cannot our twenty millions do, every man with sword in heart, in this day when human nature and conscience are making a stand for truth and right?  What barrier can we not break, what purpose can we not accomplish?

“We have no desire to accuse Japan of breaking many solemn treaties since 1636, nor to single out specially the teachers in the schools or government officials who treat the heritage of our ancestors as a colony of their own, and our people and their civilization as a nation of savages, finding delight only in beating us down and bringing us under their heel.

“We have no wish to find special fault with Japan’s lack of fairness or her contempt of our civilization and the principles on which her state rests; we, who have greater cause to reprimand ourselves, need not spend precious time in finding fault with others; neither need we, who require so urgently to build for the future, spend useless hours over what is past and gone.  Our urgent need to-day is the setting up of this house of ours and not a discussion of who has broken it down, or what has caused its ruin.  Our work is to clear the future of defects in accord with the earnest dictates of conscience.  Let us not be filled with bitterness or resentment over past agonies or past occasions for anger.