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 Nature and 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 they are
among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to
secure these rights, governments are instituted among them, deriving
their just power 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 shown that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable, than t 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 usurpations, all having in direct object 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 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 invasion on the rights of the people.
He has
refused for a long time, after such dissolution, 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 convulsion within.
He has endeavored to prevent the
population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws of
naturalizing of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their
migration hither, and raising the condition of new appropriations of
lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by
refusing his assent of laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their
office, and the amount and payment of their salary.
He has
erected a multitude of new officers, and sent hither swarms of officers
to harass our people, and eat out our substances.
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 murder 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 systems 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 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 and perfidy scarcely parallel 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 insurrection amongst us, and has endeavored 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
petition 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 usurpation, 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 States Colonies and Independent States; that they are
absolved by from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all
political connection between them and the State, 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.
