IN CONGRESS, JULY 4,
1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of
America
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.
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, 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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient
causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed
to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce
them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw
off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now
the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
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.
He has refuted his Assent
to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public
good.
He has 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.
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.
He has 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 his measures.
He has dissolved Representative
Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the
rights of the people.
He has refused for a long
time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the
Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People
at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed
to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions
within.
He has endeavored to prevent
the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for
Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their
migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of
Lands.
He has obstructed the
Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing
Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent
on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment
of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude
of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and
eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in
times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our
legislatures.
He has affected to render
the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others
to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged
by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended
Legislation:
For quartering large bodies
of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by
a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on
the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade
with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us
without our Consent:
For depriving us in many
cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond
Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free
System of English 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 these Colonies
For taking away our Charters,
abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of
our Governments:
For suspending our own
Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for
us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government
here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against
us.
He has plundered our seas,
ravaged our Coasts burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our
people.
He is at this time transporting
large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation,
and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely
paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a
civilized nation.
He has constrained our
fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their
Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to
fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic
insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants
of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare,
is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and
conditions.
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. A Prince,
whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is
unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting
in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time
of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction
over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and
settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity,
and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred. to disavow these
usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We
must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation,
and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace
Friends.
We, therefore, the
Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled,
appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions,
do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly
publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to
be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance
to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and
the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that
as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude
Peace contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to 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.
--John
Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge
Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver
Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham
Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer,
James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of
Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas
Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur
Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
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