Back!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.
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