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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.--- FOR quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us;--- HE has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and
waging War against us.--- 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.--- 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. IN CONGRESS, JANUARY 18, 1777.
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 the
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 the 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
harrass 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 Rules 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 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.
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.
GEORGIA, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton.
NORTH-CAROLINA, Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.
SOUTH-CAROLINA,
Edward Rutledge, Thos Heyward, junr., Thomas Lynch, junr., Arthur Middleton.
MARYLAND, Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles Carroll, of
Carrollton.
VIRGINIA, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Ths. Jefferson,
Benja. Harrison, Thos. Nelson, jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton.
PENNSYLVANIA, Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Franklin, John Morton,
Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson, Geo. Ross.
DELAWARE,
Caesar Rodney, Geo. Read.
NEW-YORK, Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frank
Lewis, Lewis Morris.
NEW-JERSEY, Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras.
Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark.
NEW-HAMPSHIRE, Josiah Bartlett, Wm.
Whipple, Matthew Thornton.
MASSACHUSETTS-BAY, Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt.
Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry.
RHODE-ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE, C. Step. Hopkins,
William Ellery.
CONNECTICUT, Roger Sherman, Saml. Huntington, Wm. Williams,
Oliver Wolcott.