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Complete online
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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. |
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The
56 signatures on the Declaration
President of Congress: John Hancock
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George
Walton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes,
John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward,
Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
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
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
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston,
Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon,
Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple,
Matthew Thornton
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
Breeds
Hill Institute PO Box 5491 Orange CA 92863-5491
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