THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776.

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.