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.
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