[United States Senate Manual, 117th Congress]
[S. Doc. 117-1]
[Historical Documents]
[Pages 531-536]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 531]]
                                       [1700]

            ____________________________________________________________

 
                             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 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;

[[Page 532]]

            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 dispository 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.

[[Page 533]]

                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 of the Head of a civilized nation.
                He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on 
            the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country,

[[Page 534]]

            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 
            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

[[Page 535]]

            to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

  (The foregoing declaration was, by order of Congress, engrossed, and 
                    signed by the following members:)

                                                           JOHN HANCOCK.

                              New Hampshire

            Vosiah Bartlett,
            Wm. Whipple,
            Matthew Thornton.
              

                            Massachusetts Bay

            Saml. Adams,
            John Adams,
            Robt. Treat Paine,
            Elbridge Gerry.

                           Rhode Island, etc.

            Step. Hopkins,
            William Ellery.

                               Connecticut

            Roger Sherman,
            Sam'el Huntington,
            Wm. Williams,
            Oliver Wolcott.

                                New York

            Wm. Floyd,
            Phil. Livingston,
            Frans. Lewis,
            Lewis Morris.

                               New Jersey

            Richd. Stockton,
            Jno. Witherspoon,
            Fras. Hopkinson,
            John Hart,
            Abra Clark.
              

                              Pennsylvania

            Robt. Morris,
            Benjamin Rush,
            Benja. Franklin,
            John Morton,
            Geo. Clymer,
            Jas. Smith,
            Geo. Taylor,
            James Wilson,
            Geo. Ross.
              

                                Delaware

            Caesar Rodney,
            Geo. Read,
            Tho. M'Kean.
              

                                Maryland

            Samuel Chase,
            Wm. Paca,
              
            Thos. Stone,
            Charles Carroll of
              Carrollton.

[[Page 536]]



                                Virginia

            George Withe,
            Richard Henry Lee,
            Th. Jefferson,
            Benja. Harrison,
            Thos. Nelson, Jr.,
            Francis Lightfoot Lee,
            Carter Braxton.
              

                             North Carolina

            Wm. Hooper,
            Joseph Hewes,
            John Penn.
              

                             South Carolina

            Edward Rutledge,
            Thos. Heyward, Junr.,
            Thomas Lynch, Junr.,
            Arthur Middleton.

                                 Georgia

            Button Gwinnett,
            Lyman Hall,

            Geo. Walton.
              
                  

                Resolved, That copies of the Declaration be sent to the 
            several assemblies, conventions, and committees or councils 
            of safety, and to the several commanding officers of the 
            Continental Troops: That it be proclaimed in each of the 
            United States, and at the Head of the Army.--[Jour. Cong., 
            vol. 1, p. 396.]
                              articles of confederation

            articles of confederation