The Declaration of
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
The unanimous
Declaration of the thirteen united States of
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,
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