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 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 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 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 complete 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 aages, 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. |
