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.
Signers of the Declaration of Independence arranged by
colony
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Connecticut
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
Delaware
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Georgia
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Maryland
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Massachusetts
John Hancock
Samual Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Matthew Thornton
New Jersey
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark |
New York
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
North Carolina
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Pennsylvania
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
South Carolina
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Virginia
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton |
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