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The Declaration of Independence
A Transcription
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