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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 endeavoured 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 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 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. 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.
You will note that the names of the Men who signed this Declaration are
not present. I feel that to type the names would not do them justice, in
particular, the name of John Hancock who is reported as stating that he would
make his signature large so that the king could read it without his spectacles.
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