|
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:
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
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
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
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
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
|
