Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence

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 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.

    The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
 Button Gwinnett
 Lyman Hall
 George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
 William Hooper
 Joseph Hewes
 John Penn
South Carolina:
 Edward Rutledge
 Thomas Heyward, Jr.
 Thomas Lynch, Jr.
 Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
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

Column 4
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

Column 5
New York:
 William Floyd
 Philip Livingston
 Francis Lewis
 Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
 Richard Stockton
 John Witherspoon
 Francis Hopkinson
 John Hart
 Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
 Josiah Bartlett
 William Whipple
Massachusetts:
 Samuel Adams
 John Adams
 Robert Treat Paine
 Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
 Stephen Hopkins
 William Ellery
Connecticut:
 Roger Sherman
 Samuel Huntington
 William Williams
 Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
 Matthew Thornton

HOME - TIPS - NAFTA - FOCUS - DECLARATION - MOTTO - CONSTITUTION - AMENDMENTS - eStore - CONTACT - HERITAGE - VIDEO-ENERGY