IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
A DECLARATION
By the REPRESENTATIVES of the
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
In GENERAL CONGRESS assembled
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 instituted 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 as 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 utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the
Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People
should 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, an 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 Invasion of 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 to the Dangers of Invasion from without, and
Convulsions within.
He has endevoured 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 Offenses:
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 and 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 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 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 endevoured 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 state of these Oppressions we have
Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated
Petitions have been answered only as 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 the Attentions to our
British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of
Attempts by our 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 to have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and 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
he 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 support to this
declaration, with a firm Reliance of the Protection of divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our
Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
attest.
Charles Thomson, Secretary.
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