University of Virginia Library

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 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 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
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: — 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 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.