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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 shown,
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 Objects 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 contrains 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 the 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, incapale 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 invasions from without,
and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that
purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing
to pass others to encourage their migration 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 multude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers
to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us in time 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 constitutions, 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 offenses;
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province,
establishing therein an Arbitary government, and enlarging its Boundaries,
so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing
the same absolute rule in 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, burned our towns, and
destroyed the lives of our poeple.
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 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.
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