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4 juli 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 to 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 meantime exposed to all the Dangers
of Invasion from without, and the 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
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 Legislature.
HE has affected to render the
Military independent of and superior to 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 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 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, burned 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 and 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 endeavored to bring on the Inhabitants of our
frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is
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 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 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 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 the 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.
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New Hampshire: Josiah
Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
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Massachusetts: John Hancock,
Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
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Rhode Island: Stephen
Hopkins,
William Ellery
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Connecticut: Roger Sherman,
Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
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New York: William Floyd,
Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
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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: Caesar Rodney,
George Read, Thomas McKean
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Maryland: Samuel Chase,
William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
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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
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South Carolina: Edward
Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
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Georgia: Button Gwinnett,
Lyman Hall, George Walton.
  
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