Declaration of
Independence
[Adopted in Congress 4
July 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 to 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 meantime 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
migration 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 legislature.
He
has affected to
render the military
independent of and
superior to 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 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
offenses:
For abolishing the
free system of
English laws in a
neighboring
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 in
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, burned 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 of
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
endeavored to bring
on the inhabitants
of our frontiers,
the merciless Indian
savages, whose known
rule of warfare, is
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
attention 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. 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 levey
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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