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The Declaration of Independence
of the Thirteen Colonies
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 [George III] 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 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 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 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 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.
The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:
New Hampshire:
Josiah
Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton