    [United States Government Manual]
    [June 01, 2002]
    [Pages 1-3]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

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    The Declaration of Independence

    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 shown, 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

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    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
    migration 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 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 disolved; and
    that as Free and

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    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.

    John Hancock            Benj. Harrison          Lewis Morris
    Button Gwinnett         Thos. Nelson, Jr.       Richd. Stockton
    Lyman Hall              Francis Lightfoot Lee   Jno. Witherspoon
    Geo. Walton             Carter Braxton          Fras. Hopkinson
    Wm. Hooper              Robt. Morris            John Hart
    Joseph Hewes            Benjamin Rush           Abra. Clark
    John Penn               Benj. Franklin          Josiah Bartlett
    Edward Rutledge         John Morton             Wm. Whipple
    Thos. Heyward, Jr.      Geo. Clymer             Saml. Adams
    Thomas Lynch, Jr.       Jas. Smith              John Adams
    Arthur Middleton        Geo. Taylor             Robt. Treat Paine
    Samuel Chase            James Wilson            Elbridge Gerry
    Wm. Paca                Geo. Ross               Step. Hopkins
    Thos. Stone             Caesar Rodney           William Ellery
    Charles Carroll of      Geo. Read               Roger Sherman
      Carrollton            Tho. M: Kean            Sam. Huntington
    George Wythe            Wm. Floyd               Wm. Williams
    Richard Henry Lee       Phil. Livingston        Oliver Wolcott
    Th. Jefferson           Frans. Lewis            Matthew Thornton