[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 96 (Thursday, July 1, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H5328-H5330]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FOR THE RECORD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Schaffer) is recognized for 1 minute.
  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, the House will adjourn in approximately 1 
minute. In Washington, D.C., the Nation's Capital, 12 o'clock is 
midnight, is the time for us to finish. It would be, I think the House 
would be in remiss, if we were not to reflect upon the occasion for our 
recess over the next week. A remarkable story, 223 years in the making, 
the founding of our Nation, our Declaration of Independence, the 4th of 
July, recalls the memory and the scene of those brave individuals in 
Philadelphia who declared our independence.
  I do not know, Mr. Speaker, that the Declaration of Independence has 
ever

[[Page H5329]]

been entered into our Record, but I would ask now that the Declaration 
be added to the Congressional Record:

The Declaration of Independence--A Transcription--In Congress, 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 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 in 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 place unusual, 
     uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of the 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 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 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 the 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 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.
       The 56-signatures on the Declaration appear in the 
     positions indicated:


                               [Column 1]

       Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton.


                               [Column 2]

       North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.
       South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., 
     Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton.


                               [Column 3]

       Massachusetts: John Hancock.
       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.


                               [Column 4]

       Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin rush, Benjamin 
     Franklin, John Morton,

[[Page H5330]]

     George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, 
     George Ross.
       Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean.


                               [Column 5]

       New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, 
     Lewis Morris.
       New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis 
     Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark.


                               [Column 6]

       New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple.
       Massachusetts: Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat 
     Paine, Elbridge Gerry.
       Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery.
       Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William 
     Williams, Oliver Wolcott.
       New Hampshire: Matthew Thornton.

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