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 bonds 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 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 shown, 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 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 to the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws
of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation until
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
accomodation 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 mean time 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 of
Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their
migration 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 of their
substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace,
Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislature.
He has affected to render the Miltary
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 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
benefit of Trial by Jury;
For transporting us beyond the 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
Government;
For suspending our own legislature, 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 compleat the works of death, desolation and
tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely
paralleld in the most 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 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 attention 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 consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the
necessity, which denounces our Separation and hold them, as we hold the rest of
mankind, Enmies 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.
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John Hancock
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New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett Wm. Whipple Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts Bay
Saml. Adams John Adams Elbridge Gerry Robt. Treat Paine
Rhode Island
Step. Hopkins William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman Sam'el Huntington Wm. Williams Oliver Wolcott
New York
Wm. Floyd Phil. Livingston Frans. Lewis Lewis Morris |
New Jersey
Richd. Stockton Jno. Witherspoon Fras. Hopkinson John Hart Abra. Clark
Pennsylvania
Robt. Morris Benjamin Rush Benja. Franklin John Morton Geo. Clymer Jas. Smith Geo. Taylor James Wilson Geo. Ross
Delaware
Caesar Rodney Geo. Read Tho. M'Kean
Maryland
Samuel Chase Wm. Paca Thos. Stone Charles Carroll of Carrollton |
Virginia
George Wuthe Richard Henry Lee Th. Jefferson Benja. Harrison Thos. Nelson, jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee Carter Braxton
North Carolina
Wm. Hooper Joseph Hewes John Penn
South Carolina
Edward Rutledge Thos. Heyward, junr Arthur Middleton Thomas Lynch, junr
Georgia
Button Gwinnett Lyman Hall Geo. Walton |