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The Declaration of Independence

Action of Second Continental 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 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:
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 and 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 Attentions 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.
Signed by Order and in Behalf of the Congress,

JOHN HANCOCK, President
Attest.
ChARLeS ThOMSON, Secretary
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:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
elbridge Gerry
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
Matthew Thornton
William Whipple
Rhode Island:
Stephen hopkins
William ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
iSnark
Signers of the Declaration of Independence