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 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 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 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 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 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 complete 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 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 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.
JOHN
HANCOCK, President
Attest.
CHARLES THOMSON,
Secretary.