gsc/cli/priv/doi.txt

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 shewn, 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 migrations
    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 harrass 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:

    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 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, 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 Brittish 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.

Georgia
    Button Gwinnett
    Lyman Hall
    George Walton
North Carolina
    William Hooper
    Joseph Hewes
    John Penn

South Carolina
    Edward Rutledge
    Thomas Heyward, Jr.
    Thomas Lynch, Jr.
    Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts
    John Hancock

Maryland
    Samuel Chase
    William Paca
    Thomas Stone
    Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia
    George Wythe
    Richard Henry Lee
    Thomas Jefferson
    Benjamin Harrison
    Thomas Nelson, Jr.
    Francis Lightfoot Lee
    Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania
    Robert Morris
    Benjamin Rush
    Benjamin Franklin
    John Morton
    George Clymer
    James Smith
    George Taylor
    James Wilson
    George Ross

Delaware
    Caesar Rodney
    George Read
    Thomas McKean

New York
    William Floyd
    Philip Livingston
    Francis Lewis
    Lewis Morris

New Jersey
    Richard Stockton
    John Witherspoon
    Francis Hopkinson
    John Hart
    Abraham Clark

New Hampshire
    Josiah Bartlett
    William Whipple

Massachusetts
    Samuel Adams
    John Adams
    Robert Treat Paine
    Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island
    Stephen Hopkins
    William Ellery

Connecticut
    Roger Sherman
    Samuel Huntington
    William Williams
    Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire
    Matthew Thornton