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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 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 [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 |
