Charters
of Freedom - The Declaration of Independence
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 meantime 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 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 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 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 and the new states they represented:
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean |
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott |
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton |
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of
Carrollton |
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge
Gerry |
New
Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart,
Abraham Clark |
New
Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton |
New
York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris |
North
Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn |
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton,
George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George
Ross |
South
Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur
Middleton |
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison,
Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
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Rhode
Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery |
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