The Declaration of Independence

[Guest guest]

Someone else posted this and I'd like to pass it on.

 

 

The Declaration of Independence: A 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.

 

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the

positions indicated:

 

Column 1

Georgia:

 

Button Gwinnett

 

Lyman Hall

 

George Walton

 

Column 2

 

North Carolina:

 

William Hooper

 

Joseph Hewes

 

John Penn

 

South Carolina:

 

Edward Rutledge

 

Thomas Heyward, Jr.

 

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

 

Arthur Middleton

 

Column 3

 

Massachusetts:

 

John Hancock

 

Maryland:

 

Samuel Chase

 

William Paca

 

Thomas Stone

 

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

 

Virginia:

 

George Wythe

 

Richard Henry Lee

 

Thomas Jefferson

 

Benjamin Harrison

 

Thomas Nelson, Jr.

 

Francis Lightfoot Lee

 

Carter Braxton

 

Column 4

 

Pennsylvania:

 

Robert Morris

 

Benjamin Rush

 

Benjamin Franklin

 

John Morton

 

George Clymer

 

James Smith

 

George Taylor

 

James Wilson

 

George Ross

 

Delaware:

 

Caesar Rodney

 

George Read

 

Thomas McKean

 

Column 5

 

New York:

 

William Floyd

 

Philip Livingston

 

Francis Lewis

 

Lewis Morris

 

New Jersey:

 

Richard Stockton

 

John Witherspoon

 

Francis Hopkinson

 

John Hart

 

Abraham Clark

 

Column 6

 

New Hampshire:

 

Josiah Bartlett

 

William Whipple

 

Massachusetts:

 

Samuel Adams

 

John Adams

 

Robert Treat Paine

 

Elbridge Gerry

 

Rhode Island:

 

Stephen Hopkins

 

William Ellery

 

Connecticut:

 

Roger Sherman

 

Samuel Huntington

 

William Williams

 

Oliver Wolcott

 

New Hampshire:

 

Matthew Thornton

 

Page URL:

http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/

declaration_transcript.html

 

U.S. National Archives & Records Administration

 

8601 Adelphi Road, College Park, MD, 20740-6001, •

1-86-NARA-NARA •

1-866-272-6272

 

Everybody who signed the Declaration of Independence

was also mysteriously killed.