1776 Declaration of
July 4, 1776
The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united
[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 to 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 meantime
exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and the Convulsions
within.
HE has
endeavored to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose
obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others
to encourage their Migration 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
Legislature.
HE has
affected to render the Military independent of and superior to 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 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 neighboring 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, burned 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 endeavored to bring on the
Inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of
Warfare, is 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
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.
・New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William
Whipple, Matthew Thornton
・Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual
Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
・Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
・Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel
Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
・New York: William Floyd, Philip
Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
・New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon,
Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
・Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin
Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George
Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
・Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read,
Thomas McKean
・Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca,
Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
・Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry
Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot
Lee, Carter Braxton
・North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph
Hewes, John Penn
・South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas
Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
・Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall,
George Walton.