| 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
the 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 the 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 Rules 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 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.
John Hancock.
GEORGIA, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton.
NORTH-CAROLINA, Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn.
SOUTH-CAROLINA, Edward Rutledge, Thos Heyward, junr.,
Thomas Lynch, junr., Arthur Middleton.
MARYLAND, Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles
Carroll, of Carrollton.
VIRGINIA, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Ths.
Jefferson, Benja. Harrison, Thos. Nelson, jr., Francis Lightfoot
Lee, Carter Braxton.
PENNSYLVANIA, Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja.
Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James
Wilson, Geo. Ross.
DELAWARE, Caesar Rodney, Geo. Read.
NEW-YORK, Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frank Lewis,
Lewis Morris.
NEW-JERSEY, Richd. Stockton, Jno. Witherspoon, Fras.
Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark.
NEW-HAMPSHIRE, Josiah Bartlett, Wm. Whipple, Matthew
Thornton.
MASSACHUSETTS-BAY, Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat
Paine, Elbridge Gerry.
RHODE-ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE, C. Step. Hopkins, William
Ellery.
CONNECTICUT, Roger Sherman, Saml. Huntington, Wm.
Williams, Oliver Wolcott.
IN CONGRESS, JANUARY 18, 1777.
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