| 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 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
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 endeavored
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 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 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 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.
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George
Walton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes,
John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward
Jr., Thomas Lynch Jr, Arthur Middleton
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas
Stone, Charles Carrol of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee,
Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis
Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
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
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston,
Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon,
Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple,
Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts-Bay: Samuel Adams, John Adams,
Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins,William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington,
William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
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