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 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
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