Declaration of Independence of
the United States
As we have 4
children, 2 of which are high schoolers. We Have noticed that many of
our youngsters today (as well as many adults) confuse the Declaration of
Independence with the Constitution. Not the fact that they are 2 separate
historical documents, but of their content and meanings. For this reason, we
have decided to post a transcript of the Declaration of Independence as it not
only shows the intent our founding fathers had in becoming an independent and
separate nation, but the specific reasons for this unanimous decision.
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
[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.
The signers of the
Declaration represented the new states as follows:
New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett,
William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts
John Hancock, Samual
Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins,
William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman, Samuel
Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York
William Floyd, Philip
Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey
Richard Stockton, John
Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
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
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
North Carolina
William Hooper, Joseph
Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina
Edward Rutledge, Thomas
Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia
Button Gwinnett, Lyman
Hall, George Walton
