The Declaration of Independence of
The United States of America
by Thomas Jefferson
Edition 1,
(October
12, 2005)
The Declaration of Independence of The
United States of America
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 shown, 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
of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to
encourage their migration 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 harass 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 of 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 attention 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 the
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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