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T^he Declaration of Independence

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The Declaration of Independe7jce

In Congress July4J776

New York

Duffield & Company

1907

THE I^EW YORK 1 jpnBLIC LIBRARY I

Copyright. 1907, by DUFFIELD & COMPANY

■KubllifhfKi AugiiSt..l907.

The Declaration of Independence

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The Unanimous Declaration

of the Thirteen United

States of America

When, in the course of hu- man events, it becomes neces- sary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with one an- other, 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 opin- ions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the sep- aration.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, lib- erty, and the pursuit of hap- piness. That to secure these rights, governments are in- stituted among men, deriving their just powers from the con- sent of the governed; that whenever any form of govern- ment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new gov- ernment, laying its foundation on such principles, and or-

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ganizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safe- ty and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that gov- ernments long established should not be changed for lieht 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 usurpa- tions, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute

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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 col- onies ; and such is now the ne- cessity 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 es- tablishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submit- ted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to

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laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his gov- ernors to pass laws of immedi- ate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their oper- ation till his assent should be obtained; and when so sus- pended, he has utterly neglect- ed to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommoda- tion of large districts of peo- ple, unless those people would relinquish the right of repre- sentation in the legislature — a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together

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legislative bodies at places un- usual, uncomfortable, and dis- tant from the repository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his meas- ures.

He has dissolved represen- tative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firm- ness, 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 pow- ers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large, for their exercise, the

State remaining, in the mean- time, exposed to all the dan- gers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to pre- vent the population of these States; for that purpose ob- structing the laws for natural- ization of foreigners ; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the ad- ministration of justice, by re- fusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges depen- dent on his will alone, for the

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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 juris- diction foreign to our Consti-

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tution, 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 inhabi- tants 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

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seas to be tried for pretended offences :

For abolishing the free sys- tem of EngHsh laws in a neighboring province, estab- Hshing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit in- strument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies :

For taking av^ay our char- yi ters, abolishing our most valu- able laws, and altering, funda- mentally, the forms of our government :

For suspending our own

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themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated govern- ment 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 transport- ing 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 fel- low-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to be- come the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic in- surrections among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruc- tion of all ages, sexes, and con- ditions.

In every stage of these op-

pressions we have petitioned

for redress in the most humble

terms; our repeated petitions

have been answered only by I

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 at- tempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circum- stances of our emigration and settlement here. We have ap-

pealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to dis- avow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspond- ence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the ne- cessity which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the repre- sentatives of the United States of America, in General Con-

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gress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these Colonies, sol- emnly publish and declare that

j^ these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States; that they are absolved from all alle- giance to the British crown,

ml and that all political connec- tion between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and indepen- dent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude

peace, contract alliance, estab- lish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which in- dependent States may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mu- tually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Signed by order and in be- half of the Congress.

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JOHN HANCOCK, ^y^/^ President.

Attested, W

Charles Thompson Secretary.

NEW HAMPSHIRE

JOSIAH BaRTLETT

William Whipple Matthew Thornton

MASSACHUSETTS BAY

Samuel Adams John Adams Robert Treat Paine Elbridge Gerry

RHODE ISLAND, &C

Stephen Hopkins William Ellery

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CONNECTICUT

Roger Sherman Samuel Huntington William Williams Oliver Wolcott

NEW YORK

William Floyd Philip Livingston Francis Lewis Lewis Morris

NEW JERSEY

Richard Stockton John Witherspoon Francis Hopkinson John Hart Abraham Clark

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PENNSYLVANIA

Robert Morris Benjamin Rush Benjamin Franklin John Morton George Clymer James Smith George Taylor James Wilson George Ross

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DELAWARE

Casar Rodney George Read Thomas M'Kean

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

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NORTH CAROLINA

William Hooper Joseph Hewes John Penn

SOUTH CAROLINA

Edward Rutledge Thomas Haywood, Jr. Thomas Lynch, Jr. Arthur Middleton

GEORGIA Button Gwinnett Lyman Hall w'^'-

George Walton ^Mwt-\

^^^ CENTn^L CI??CULATION,

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