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
