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 heth 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 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 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 Legislature, 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 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 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.

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