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 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 of 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 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 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 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 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 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
Bri tain, 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.
JOHN HANCOCK, President
Attested, CHARLES
THOMSON, Secretary
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
Georgia: BUTTON
GWINNETT, LYMAN HALL, GEO. WALTON
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.
New York: WILLIAM
FLOYD, PHILIP LIVINGSTON, FRANCIS LEWIS, LEWIS
MORRIS
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 M'KEAN
North Carolina:
WILLIAM HOOPER, JOSEPH HEWES, JOHN PENN
South Carolina:
EDWARD RUTLEDGE, THOMAS HEYWARD, JR., THOMAS
LYNCH, JR., ARTHUR MIDDLETON
New Jersey:
RICHARD STOCKTON, JOHN WITHERSPOON, FRANCIS
HOPKINS, JOHN HART, ABRAHAM
CLARK
