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.
