The
Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
The
Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
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 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 [George III] 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 neighboring 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 complete
the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances
of Cruelty and 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 endeavored to bring
on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose
known rule of warfare, is an undistinguisheddestruction 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 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.
The signers of the
Declaration represented the new states as follows:
New
Hampshire
Josiah
Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts
John
Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode
Island
Stephen
Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger
Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New
York
William
Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New
Jersey
Richard
Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
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
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
North
Carolina
William
Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South
Carolina
Edward
Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia
Button
Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
For
additional information about the Declaration of Independence, see these
sites:
·
National Archives and Records Administration: Declaration of Independence
·
Library of Congress: About the Declaration of Independence
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