The Declaration of Independence
					
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 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 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
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