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 endeavored 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 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 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 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 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.
