                      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 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 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 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 Brittish 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.
