1 IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

    2 The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

    3 When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
    4 dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to
    5 assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which
    6 the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
    7 opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel
    8 them to the separation.

    9 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
   10 they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among
   11 these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these
   12 rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from
   13 the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes
   14 destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish
   15 it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles
   16 and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
   17 effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that
   18 Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient
   19 causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more
   20 disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by
   21 abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of
   22 abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design
   23 to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty,
   24 to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future
   25 security.-- Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is
   26 now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of
   27 Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of
   28 repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment
   29 of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted
   30 to a candid world.

   31 He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the
   32 public good.

   33 He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing
   34 importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be
   35 obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

   36 He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of
   37 people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the
   38 Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

   39 He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and
   40 distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of
   41 fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

   42 He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly
   43 firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

   44 He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be
   45 elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have
   46 returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the
   47 mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions
   48 within.

   49 He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose
   50 obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others
   51 to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new
   52 Appropriations of Lands.

   53 He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws
   54 for establishing Judiciary powers.

   55 He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices,
   56 and the amount and payment of their salaries.

   57 He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers
   58 to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

   59 He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent
   60 of our legislatures.

   61 He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil
   62 power.

   63 He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
   64 constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts
   65 of pretended Legislation:

   66 For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

   67 For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which
   68 they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

   69 For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

   70 For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

   71 For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

   72 For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

   73 For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province,
   74 establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so
   75 as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same
   76 absolute rule into these Colonies:

   77 For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering
   78 fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
   79 For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with
   80 power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

   81 He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and
   82 waging War against us.

   83 He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed
   84 the lives of our people.

   85 He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat
   86 the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of
   87 Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally
   88 unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

   89 He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear
   90 Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and
   91 Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

   92 He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring
   93 on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known
   94 rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and
   95 conditions.

   96 In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most
   97 humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
   98 A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant,
   99 is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

  100 Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned
  101 them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an
  102 unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances
  103 of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice
  104 and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to
  105 disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections
  106 and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of
  107 consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces
  108 our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War,
  109 in Peace Friends.

  110 We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General
  111 Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the
  112 rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good
  113 People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United
  114 Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they
  115 are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political
  116 connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be
  117 totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full
  118 Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and
  119 to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And
  120 for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of
  121 divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and
  122 our sacred Honor.