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.
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions shown:
[Column 1]
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton
[Column 2]
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton
[Column 3]
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
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
[Column 4]
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean
[Column 5]
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark
[Column 6]
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Source: The
National Archives and Records
Administration |