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The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription
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.
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