When,
in the course of human events, it becomes necessary
for one people to dissolve the political bonds
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
to 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
meantime 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
for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass
others to encourage their migration 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 legislature.
He has affected to render the military independent
of and superior to 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 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 offenses:
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
in 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,
burned 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 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. 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 the 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.
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple,
Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John
Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington,
William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis
Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon,
Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
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
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
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John
Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward,
Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George
Walton.
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds 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.