Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence
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 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 [George III] 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 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
	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 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 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 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 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 the 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.