Declaration of
Independence
Below
is the complete text of the Declaration of Independence.
The original spelling and capitalization have been retained.
(Adopted by Congress on 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 to 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 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 meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion 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
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 legislature.
He has affected to
render the military independent of and superior to 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
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 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 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 merciless Indian
savages, whose known rule of warfare, is 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.
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts: John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat
Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver
Wolcott
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John
Hart, Abraham Clark
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
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
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch,
Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Source: The Pennsylvania Packet, July 8, 1776
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