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 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 remaining in the mean time exposed to all dangers
of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He
has endeavoured to prevent the population of these
States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of
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 legislature.
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 of 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
attention 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 must 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.
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