DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Thursday, July 4, 1776. The various Colonies having established separate State organizations, and being represented in the Continental Congre at Philadelphia, on June 7, 1776, a Resolution was moved in Congre by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia " 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 di olved." Seconded by John Adams of Ma achusetts, the Resolution was pa ed July 2, and a committee, consisting of Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman and Robt. R. Livings ton, was appointed to draw up a Declaration embodying the same. The draft was made by Jefferson, and, with few changes, was pa ed on July 4. It was afterwards engro ed on parchment and signed by 56 delegates, headed by John Hancock, President of the Congre . The original document is preserved in Washington. Its text follows. THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. When, in the course of human events, it be tyranny over these States. To prove this, let comes nece ary for one people to di olve the facts be submitted to a candid world political bands which have connected them with He has refused his a ent to laws the most another, and to a ume, among the powers of wholesome and nece ary for the public good. the earth, the separate and equal station to He has forbidden his Governors to pa laws which the laws of nature and of nature's God of immediate and pre ing importance, unle entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of suspended in their operation till his a ent mankind requires that they should declare the should be obtained and, when so suspended, causes which impel them to the separation. he has utterly neglected to attend to them. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that He has refused to pa other laws for the acall men are created equal that they are encommodation of large districts of people, unle dowed by their Creator with certain inalienable those people would relinquish the right of rep rights that among these, are life, liberty, and resent at i on in the Legislature a right in est i the pursuit of happine . That to secure these mable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. rights, governments are instituted among men, He has called together legislative bodies at deriving their just powers from the consent of places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the governed that whenever any form of govthe depository of their public records, for the ernment becomes destructive of these ends, it is sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, with his measures. and to institute a new government, laying its He has di olved Representative Houses refoundation on such principles, and organizing peatedly for opposing with manly firmne his its powers in such form, as to them shall seem invasions on the rights of the people. most likely to effect their safety and happine . He has refused, for a long time after such dis- Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments solutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby long established should not be changed for light the legislative powers, incapable of an nihil a and transient causes and, accordingly, all extion, have returned to the people at large for perience hath shown, that mankind are more their exercise the State remaining, in the mean disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, time, exposed to all the danger of invasion from than to right themselves by abolishing the without, and convulsions within. forms to which they are accustomed. But when He has endeavored to prevent the population a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing of these States for that purpose obstructing the invariably the same object, evinces a design to laws for naturalization of foreigners refusing to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is thnir pa others to encourage their migration hither, right, it is their duty, to throw off such govern and raising the conditions of new appropriations ment, and to provide new guards for their fuof lands. ture security. Such has been the patient suf- He has obstructed the administration of jusferance of these Colonies, and such is now the tice by refusing his a ent to laws for establish nece ity which constrains them to alter their ing judiciary powers. former systems of government. The history of He has made judges dependent on his will the present King of Great Britain is a history of alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the repeated injuries and usurpations, all having, in amount and payment of their salaries. direct object, the establishment of an absolute He has erected a multitude of new offices, and (808) 829 DECLARATION OF sent hither swarms of officers to hara 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 a ent 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 offenses For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring 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 powers 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 endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the mercUe Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. In every stage of these oppre ions we have petitioned for redre 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 attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts made by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction INDEPENDENCE. 809 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 connection and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the nece ity 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 Congre a embled, 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 di olved and that, as free and independent Stales, 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 Signers were as follows JOHN HANCOCK. Connecticut — Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott. Delaware — Cesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas M'Eean. Georgia — Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton. Maryland — Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll, of Carroll ton. Ma achusetts Bay — Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry. New Hampshire — Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton. New Jersey — Richard Stock ton, John Wither spoon, Francis Hopktnson, John Hart, Abraham Clare. — New York William Floyd, Philip Livings ton, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris. North Carolina — William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn. Pennsylvania — Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor^ James Wilson, George Ro . Rhode Island — Stephen Hopkins, Wdlliam Ellery. South Carolina — Edward Rutledge, Thomas Webster's Condensed Dictionary