|
The Declaration of Independence
of the Thirteen
Colonies
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 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 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:
TOP
-
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.
TOP
-
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 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.
TOP
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.
TOP
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, Francis
Hopkinson, 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
|
