The Declaration of
Independence: A Transcription
IN CONGRESS, July
4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen
united States of America,
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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.
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 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 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 & 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 Brittish
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.
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The
56 signatures on the
Declaration:
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
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
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
|
North
Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur MNew York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clarkiddleton
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
|
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of
CarrolltonSamuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter B
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thorntonraxton |
|
|
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