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 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 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 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 harrass
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 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 compleat the works of
death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of Cruelty & 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 Brittish 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 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 56 signatures on the Declaration
appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
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
Column 4
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
Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton
