Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of
Independence of the Thirteen Colonies 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 inalienable 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 [George III]
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 refused 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 meantime exposed to all the dangers
of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured 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 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 benefits
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 neighbouring 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
and 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 endeavoured 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 the 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.
The signers of the Declaration represented
the new states as follows:
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samual 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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