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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
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 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 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.
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John Cooper, Georgia; Captain
Georgia Militia; wounded at Bulltown Swamp, 19thNovember 1778;
Major Georgia Militia; wounded at Four Holes, South Carolina,
15th April 1781.
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