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 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.
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
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any
copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair
use without profit or payment for non-profit research and
educational purposes only. [Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml]
|