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 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 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 Brittish 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.
He has erected a multitude of New
Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat
out their substance.
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