THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. PART III. "A DECLARATION By the Representatives of the United States of Amer-nial con ica, in General Congress assembled. The colo gress at Philadelphia, 1776. "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 as-Preamble. sume 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 Inalienable men are created equal; that they are endowed by their rights. Creator with certain inalienable 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 abolish it, and in-Right of stitute new government, laying its foundation on such revolution. 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 gov PART III. ORIGIN AND CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. The colo- ernment. The history of the present King of Great nial conBritain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpagress at Philadel- tions, all having in direct object the establishment of phia, 1776. 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 operaTyranny tion till his assent should be obtained, and when so and usurp ation of suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. the king He has refused to pass other laws, for the accommoda of Great Britain. tion 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 invasions from without, and convulsions from within. "He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for the 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 THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. PART III. gress at of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to The coloharass our people and eat out their substance. He nial conhas kept among us in times of peace, standing armies, Philadelwithout the consent of our legislatures. He has affected phia, 1776. to render the military independent of, and superior to the civil power. of Great "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 Tyranny and usurptaxes on us without our consent; For depriving us, ations of in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury; For the king transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended Britain. offences; For abolishing the free system of English daws in a neighboring 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 complete 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 PART III. ORIGIN AND CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION. The colo- country; to become the executioners of their friends nial congress at and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. Philadel- He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and phia, 1776. has endeavored 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. Petitions for redress. "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 connexions and correspondence; They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and 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 connexion between them, and the state of Great Britain, is, and ought to be totally dissolved, and that, as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES, THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. PART III. gress at they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, con-The colotract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other nial conacts and things, which INDEPENDENT STATES Philadelmay of right do. And for the support of this DECLAR- phia, 1776. ATION, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. |