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 endeavored to prevent the population of these
States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of 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 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:
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 complete 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
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.

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 attention 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.

      JOHN HANCOCK.

New Hampshire          THOS. STONE            JAMES WILSON,



  JOSIAH BARTLETT      CHARLES CARROLL        GEO. ROSS.



  WM. WHIPPLE,         OF CARROLLTON.       Delaware



  MATTHEW THORNTON.  Virginia                 CAESAR RODNEY,



Massachusetts-Bay      GEORGE WHYTE,          GEO. READ,



  SAML. ADAMS,         RICHARD HENRY LEE,     THO. M'KEAN.



  JOHN ADAMS,          TH. JEFFERSON,       North Carolina



  ROBT. TREAT PAINE,   BENJA. HARRISON,       WM. HOOPER,



  ELBRIDGE GERRY.      THS. NELSON, JR.,      JOSEPH HEWES,



Rhode Island           FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT      JOHN PENN.



  STEP. HOPKINS,       LEE,                 South Carolina



  WILLIAM ELLERY.      CARTER BRAXTON.        EDWARD RUTHLEDGE



Connecticut          New York                 THOS. HEYWARD,



  ROGER SHERMAN,       WM. FLOYD,             JUNR.,



  SAM'EL HUNTINGTON,   PHIL. LIVINGSTON,      THOMAS LYNCH,



  WM. WILLIAMS,        FRANS. LEWIS,          JUNR.,



  OLIVER WOLCOTT       LEWIS MORRIS.          ARTHUR MIDDLETON.



Georgia                FRANS. LEWIS,        New Jersey



  BUTTON GWINNETT,   Pennsylvania             RICHD. STOCKTON,



  LYMAN HALL,          ROBT. MORRIS,          JNO. WITHERSPOON,



  GEO. WALTON.         BENJAMIN RUSH,         FRAS. HOPKINSON,



Maryland               BENJA. FRANKLIN,       JOHN HART,



  SAMUEL CHASE,        JOHN MORTON,           ABRA. CLARK.



  WM.PACA,             GEO. CLYMER,



                       JAS. SMITH,



                       GEO. TAYLOR