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
migration 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 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 of
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 the 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.
John Hancock
Button Gwinnett
Lyman hall
Geo Walton
Wm Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Edward Rutledge
Thos Heyward, Junr.
Thomas Lynch, Junr.
Arthur Middleton
Samuel Chase
Thos. Stone
George Wythe
Charles Carrol of Carrollton
Richard Henry Lee
Th Jefferson
Benja. Harrison
Thos Nelson, jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Robt Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benj. Franklin
John Morton
Geo. Clymer Smith
Geo Taylor
James Wilson
Geo. Ross
Caesar Rodney
Geo. Read
Tho M: Kean
Wm. Floyd
Phil. Livingston
Frans. Lewis
Lewis Morris
Richd. Stockton
Jno.WItherspoon
Fras. Hopkinson
John Hart
Abra. Clark
Josiah Bartlett
Wm. Whipple
Saml. Adams
John Adams
Robt. Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Step. Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
Saml Huntington
Wm. Williams
Oliver Wolcott
Matthew Thorton
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