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<TITLE>The Declaration of Independence </TITLE>
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<H1>The Declaration of Independence</H1>
<H2>A Transcription</H2>
<H2>IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776</H2>
<P>
<CENTER>The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,</CENTER>
<P>
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.
<P>
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.
<UL>
<LI>He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary
for the public good.
<LI>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.
<LI>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.
<LI>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.
<LI>He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with
manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
<LI>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.
<LI>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.
<LI>He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent
to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
<LI>He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of
their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
<LI>He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms
of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
<LI>He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the
Consent of our legislatures.
<LI>He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior
to the Civil power.
<LI>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:
<LI>For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
<LI>For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders
which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
<LI>For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
<LI>For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
<LI>For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
<LI>For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
<LI>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:
<LI>For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and
altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
<LI>For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested
with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
<LI>He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection
and waging War against us.
<LI>He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and
destroyed the lives of our people.
<LI>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.
<LI>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.
<LI>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.
</UL>
<P>
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.
<P>
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.
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Transcription
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.
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