A transcription taken from the National
Archives and Records
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.
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for
opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
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- 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.
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- He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither
swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
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- He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies
without the Consent of our legislatures.
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- He has affected to render the Military independent of and
superior to the Civil power.
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- 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.
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- He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his
Protection and waging War against us.
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- He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our
towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
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- 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.
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- 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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