Drafting the Declaration of Independence
Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson
The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
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 [George III] 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 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 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 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.
Signing the Declaration of Independence
July 2, 1776
Signed by:
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William
Williams, Oliver Wolcott
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles
Carroll of Carrollton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert
Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis,
Lewis Morris
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin,
John Morton,George Clymer,James Smith,George Taylor,James Wilson,George Ross
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas
Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson,
Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
Reading the Declaration of Independence
