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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 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 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 Legislature, 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.
John
Hancock.
New
Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett Matthew
Thornton Wm. Whipple
Massachusetts
Bay
Saml.
Adams Elbridge Gerry
John Adams Robt. Treat Paine
Rhode
Island
Step. Hopkins William
Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman Wm.
Williams Sam'el Huntington
Oliver Wolcott
New
York
Wm. Floyd Frans. Lewis
Phil. Livingston Lewis Morris
New
Jersey
Richd. Stockton John Hart
Jno. Witherspoon Abra. Clark
Fras. Hopkinson
Pennsylvania
Robt. Morris Jas. Smith
Benjamin Rush Geo. Taylor
Benja. Franklin
James Wilson
John Morton
Geo. Ross Geo. Clymer
Delaware
Caesar Rodney Tho. M'kean
Geo. Read
Maryland
Samuel Chase Thos. Stone
Wm. Paca Charles Carroll of
Carrollton
Virginia
George Wythe Thos.
Nelson, Jr. Richard Henry Lee
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Th. Jefferson Carter Braxton
Benja. Harrison
North
Carolina
Wm. Hooper
John Penn
Joseph Hewes
South
Carolina
Edward Rutledge Arthur
Middleton Thos. Heyward, Junr
Thomas Lynch, Junr
Georgia
Button Gwinnett Geo.
Walton Lyman Hall |
