THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
A Transcription
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.
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 |
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 |
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 |
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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