Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen
United States of America,
The Declaration of Independence
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 pre-tended 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 and
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
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 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.
