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The Declaration of
Independence
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 quartering large bodies of
armed troops amoung 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
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, 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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