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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 shown, 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 of 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 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 complete 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
attention 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
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. |
