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 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 & 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 foregoing Declaration was,
by order
of Congress,
engrossed,
and signed
by the following members:
John Hancock, etc.
Resolved,
That copies
of the Declaration
be sent
to the several assemblies,
conventions,
and committees,
or councils
of safety,
and
to the several
commanding officers
of the continental troops;
that it
be proclaimed
in each
of the United States,
at the head
of the army.