DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IN CONGRESS,
JULY 4, 1776.

all men

(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 Law of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, а 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 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 meantime exposed to all the dangers of
invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the popula-
tion of these States; for that
structing the Laws for Naturalization of For-
purpose ob-
eigners; refusing to pass others to encourage
their migration hither, and raising the condi-
tions of new Appropriatlons of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice. by refusing his Assent to Laws for tablishing Judiciary Powers.

es

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 legislature.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. He has combined with others to subject us a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

to

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 offenses:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring 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:

and

For suspending our Own Legislatures, 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 endeavored to bring on the inhabi. tants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian

Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an
undistinguished destruction of all ages,
and conditions.

sexes

In every stage of these Oppressions We have
most humble
Petitioned for Redress in the
terms: Our repeated Petitions have been an-
A Prince,
swered only by repeated injury.
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
We have warned them
our British brethren.
from time to time of attempts by their legis-
lature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction
We have reminded them of the cir-
over us.
cumstances 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 in-
connections and correspondence.
terrupt our
They too have been deaf to the voice of justice
We must, therefore, ac-
and of consanguinity.
quiesce in the necessity, which denounces our

Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest
of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
the Representatives of the
We, therefore,
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 Alle-
giance to the British Crown, and that all politi-
cal connection between them and the State of
Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dis-
solved; 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 Inde-
And for the
pendent States may of right do.
support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance
of Divine Providence,
the Protection
mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our
Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

on

we

JOHN HANCOCK.