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 affect 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 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 of 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 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
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 complete the works of
death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty
& perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally
unworthy of 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 attention 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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