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.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
[Column 1]
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
[Column 2]
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
[Column 3]
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
[Column 4]
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
[Column 5]
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
[Column 6]
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
SOURCE: www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/declaration/declaration.html