The Declaration of
The Declaration of
In CONGRESS,
The unanimous
Declaration of the thirteen united States of
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,
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 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 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 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
The signers of the
Declaration represented the new states as follows:
Josiah Bartlett, William
Whipple, Matthew Thornton
John Hancock, Samuel
Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins, William
Ellery
Roger Sherman, Samuel
Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
William Floyd, Philip
Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
Richard Stockton, John
Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Robert Morris, Benjamin
Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor,
James Wilson, George Ross
Caesar Rodney, George
Read, Thomas McKean
Samuel Chase, William Paca,
Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of
George Wythe, Richard
Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis
Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
William Hooper, Joseph
Hewes, John Penn
Edward Rutledge, Thomas
Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Button Gwinnett, Lyman
Hall, George Walton