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The Declaration of Independence of The United States of America |
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 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 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 of Naturalization of Foreigners; |
refusing to pass others to encourage their migration 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 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: |
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