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 [George III] 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 meantime 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 harass 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 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

complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun

with circumstances of cruelty and 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 British 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 the 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.