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.
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
|
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
|
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of
Carrollton
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
|
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
|
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
|
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
Matthew Thornton
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