Show THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE Unanimously Adopted in Congress July 4 4 1773 at Philadelphia WHEN WHEN HEN IN THE COURSE of human events it becomes ne necessary necessary essary 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 Natures Nature's God entitles 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 inalienable 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 con ent of the governed That Tha y 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 foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness Hap iness Prudence indeed will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes and accordingly all experience hath that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are arc 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 ab absolute absolute ab- ab solute Despotism it is their right it is their duty to throw off oft such Government and to provide new Guards for their future security Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies Colonies Colo Colo- nies 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 aU 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 E 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 relinquish relinquish relin relin- the right of Representation in the Legislature a a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual uncomfortable and di distant tant 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 op opposing opposing opposing op- op posing with manly firmness 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 in incapable incapable incapable in- in capable of Annihilation have returned to the People at large for their exercise the State remaining in the meantime ex exposed exposed exposed ex- ex posed to all the dangers of invasion from without and convulsions convulsions s ons within He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization r of Foreigners refusing to pass others to encourage their migration migration migration migra migra- tion hither and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing refusing refus refus- ing ng his Assent to laws for or establishing Judiciary Powers H He e has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their I salaries He has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their sub sub- stance He has kept among us in times tunes of peace Standing Armies without the Consent of our Legislature He has affected to render the Military independent of and I 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 law's I giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation FOR pOR OR QUARTERING large bodies of armed troops among ua 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 impo imposing ing Taxes on us without our Consent For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial TrIa by jury For transporting us beyond Seas to he be a tried for pretended offenses I. I For abolishing the free System of English Laws in to a neigh neighboring neighboring boring Province establishing therein an Arbitrary government and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once nc un an ex example tIC t-c- ample and fit instrument for introducing the sofas same absolute rule into these Colonies For taking away our Charters abolishing our most must valuable val val- Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of of our Governments For suspending our own Legislatures and declaring themselves themselves themselves them them- selves invested with the power to legislate for us in all aU cases whatsoever He has abdicated Government here by declaring us us' out ol of his Ws 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 complete the works of death desolation and tyranny already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy perfidy perfidy per per- scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation He has constrained our fellow-Citizens fellow taken captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country to become the executioners o of their friends and Brethren or to fall faU themselves themselves themselves them them- selves by their Hands He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us us and 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 and conditions JN IN N EVERY STAGE of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms Our repeated Petitions Petitions Petitions Peti Peti- 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 Britain brethren We VIe have warned them from time to time of at attempts attempts attempts at- at tempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction jurisdiction jurisdiction juris juris- diction over us We Ve 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 inevitably interrupt our connections and cor cor- 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 m mankind Enemies mankind Enemies in War Var in Peace Friends WE E 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 intentions 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 British British Brit Brit- ish 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 Commerce Commerce Com Com- merce and do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do And for the support of this Declaration Declaration Declaration Declara Declara- tion with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence Providence Providence Provi Provi- dence we mutually pledge to each other our Lives our Fortunes Fortunes Fortunes For For- tunes and our sacred Honor John Hancock Abra Clark Button Gwinnett 4 l George Wythe 2 J r Lyman Hall I r r W I Richard Henry Lee Geo Walton Valton J I j Th Jefferson t I W r Wm Vm Hooper M f 5 t r Vr Benja Harrison Joseph Hewes T TJohn Thos Nelson Jr John Penn r j jEdward Francis Lightfoot Lee Edward Rutledge Carter Braxton 1 n Thos Heyward Junr Robt Morris Junr r Rush k 1 Thomas Lynch Benjamin Arthur Middleton i JI Benja Franklin f A Samuel Chase r John Morton lorton W i Wm Vm Paca Geo Clymer Thos Stone Jas Smith Charles Carroll of Carroll Carrollton ton Geo Taylor James Wilson Vilson Josiah Bartlett Geo Ross Wm Hipple Caesar Rodney r Saml Adams Geo Reed John Adams Tho M M. Kean Kean Robt Treat Payne Wm Vm Floyd Eldridge Gerry t r Phil Paul Livingston Step Hopkins 51 Frans Grans Lewis William Ellery i f 1 t v V Lewis Morris Roger Sherman ft t Stockton Samuel Huntington Jno Witherspoon Wm Vm Williams Fras Hopkinson fl Oliver Woolcott John Hart Matthew l Thornton J A ri b f |