Declaration of Independence
The 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 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.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia: Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall George Walton
Column 2
North Carolina: William Hooper
Joseph Hewes John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr. Arthur Middleton
Column 3
Massachusetts: John Hancock
Maryland: Samuel Chase
William Paca Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of
Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr. Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Column 4
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush Benjamin Franklin
John Morton George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
Column 5
New York: William Floyd
Philip Livingston Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Column 6
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts: Samuel Adams John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire: Matthew Thornton