| 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 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 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
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