THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
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.