Declaration
of Independence
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Governments do not grant rights to their citizens. Your rights are natural rights, far more ancient than any government. However, we can grant power to a responsible government to protect our rights. A government that abuses our natural rights is an illegitamate government.
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; 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 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. 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 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.
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
John Hancock
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
Matthew Thornton