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 [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
meantime 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 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 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 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 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 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
and the new States they represented
Connecticut
-
Roger Sherman
-
Samuel Huntington
-
William Williams
-
Oliver Wolcott
Delaware
-
Caesar Rodney
-
George Read
-
Thomas McKean
Georgia
-
Button Gwinnett
-
Lyman Hall
-
George Walton
Maryland
-
Samuel Chase
-
William Paca
-
Thomas Stone
-
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Massachusetts
-
John Hancock
-
Samual Adams
-
John Adams
-
Robert Treat Paine
-
Elbridge Gerry
New Hampshire
-
Josiah Bartlett
-
William Whipple
-
Matthew Thornton
New Jersey
-
Richard Stockton
-
John Witherspoon
-
Francis Hopkinson
-
John Hart
-
Abraham Clark
New York
-
William Floyd
-
Philip Livingston
-
Francis Lewis
-
Lewis Morris
North Carolina
-
William Hooper
-
Joseph Hewes
-
John Penn
Pennsylvania
-
Robert Morris
-
Benjamin Rush
-
Benjamin Franklin
-
John Morton
-
George Clymer
-
James Smith
-
George Taylor
-
James Wilson
-
George Ross
Rhode Island
-
Stephen Hopkins
-
William Ellery
South Carolina
-
Edward Rutledge
-
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
-
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
-
Arthur Middleton
Virginia
-
-
George Wythe
-
Richard Henry Lee
-
Thomas Jefferson
-
Benjamin Harrison
-
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
-
Francis Lightfoot Lee
-
Carter Braxton
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