IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the
thirteen united States of America
¶ 1 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.
¶ 2 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.
¶ 3 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.
¶ 4 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.
¶ 5 Nor have We been wanting in
attention 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.
¶ 6 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.
[Georgia]
| Button Gwinnett |
|---|
| Lyman Hall |
|---|
| George Walton |
|---|
[North Carolina]
| William Hooper |
|---|
| Joseph Hewes |
|---|
| John Penn |
|---|
[South Carolina]
| Edward Rutledge |
|---|
| Thomas Heyward, Jr. |
|---|
| Thomas Lunch, Jr. |
|---|
| Arthur Middleton |
|---|
[Massachusetts]
| John Hancock |
|---|
| Samuel Adams |
|---|
| John Adams |
|---|
| Robert Treat Paine |
|---|
| Elbridge Gerry |
|---|
[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 |
|---|
[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 |
|---|
[New York]
| William Floyd |
|---|
| Philip Livingston |
|---|
| Francis Lewis |
|---|
| Lewis Morris |
|---|
[New Jersy]
| Richard Stockton |
|---|
| John Witherspoon |
|---|
| Francis Hopkinson |
|---|
| John Hart |
|---|
| Abraham Clark |
|---|
[New Hampshire]
| Josiah Bartlett |
|---|
| William Whipple |
|---|
| Matthew Thornton |
|---|
[Rhode Island]
| Stephen Hopkins |
|---|
| William Ellery |
|---|
[Connecticut]
| Roger Sherman |
|---|
| Samuel Huntington |
|---|
| William Williams |
|---|
| Oliver Wolcott |
|---|
|
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