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 off atiguing 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 endeavoured to prevent the populationof these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization ofForeigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, andraising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed theAdministration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishingJudiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for thetenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He haserected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harassour people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times ofpeace, Standing Armies without the consent of our legislatures. He has affectedto render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He hascombined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to ourconstitution and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts ofpretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders whichthey 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 ourConsent: For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: Fortransporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishingthe free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishingtherein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to renderit at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute ruleinto these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuableLaws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspendingour own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislatefor us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaringus 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. Heis at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleatthe works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances ofCruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totallyunworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizenstaken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to becomethe executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by theirHands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured tobring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whoseknown rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes andconditions. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redressin the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only byrepeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which maydefine a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We beenwanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time totime of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdictionover us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlementhere. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we haveconjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations,which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They toohave been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must,therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and holdthem, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, theRepresentatives of the united States of America, in General Congress,Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of ourintentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of theseColonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and ofRight ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from allAllegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between themand the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and thatas Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, concludePeace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts andThings which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of thisDeclaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each otherour 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, SamualAdams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins,William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, SamuelHuntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, PhilipLivingston, 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, GeorgeTaylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, GeorgeRead, Thomas McKean
Maryland: Samuel Chase, WilliamPaca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, RichardHenry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., FrancisLightfoot 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