IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

A DECLARATION

By the REPRESENTATIVES of the

UNITED STATES of AMERICA,

in GENERAL CONGRESS ASSEMBLED

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 & 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, & 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 abolish it, & to institute new Government, laying it's Foundation on such Principles, & organizing it's Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety & Happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light & 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 & 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, & to provide new Guards for their future Security. Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; & 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 & 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 & necessary for the public Good. —— He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate & pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; & 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, & 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 meantime exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, & 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, & 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, & the Amount & payment of their Salaries. —— He has erected a Multitude of new Offices and sent hither Swarms of new 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, & superior to the Civil power. —— He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, & 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 it's 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, & 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, & destroyed the Lives of our People. —— He is, at this time Transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of Death, Desolation & Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, & 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 & Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. —— He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, & 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, & 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 & 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 Connection and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice & 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, do, in the name, & by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and are of Right 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; & that as Free & Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce & to do all other Acts & 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, & our sacred Honor.