Declaration
of Independence
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 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 mean time 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 harrass 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 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
compleat 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 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 Brittish 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.
The 56 signatures on the
Declaration appear in
the positions indicated:
Column
1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column
2
North
Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South
Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column
3
Massachusetts:
John
Hancock
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
Column
4
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
Column
5
New
York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New
Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column
6
New
Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
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
Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
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