
      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 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 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 & 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 attention 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 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. 

      JOHN HANCOCK, President

      Attested, CHARLES THOMSON, Secretary

      New Hampshire 
       JOSIAH BARTLETT
       WILLIAM WHIPPLE
       MATTHEW THORNTON

      Massachusetts-Bay
       SAMUEL ADAMS
       JOHN ADAMS
       ROBERT TREAT PAINE
       ELBRIDGE GERRY

      Rhode Island
       STEPHEN HOPKINS
       WILLIAM ELLERY

      Connecticut
       ROGER SHERMAN
       SAMUEL HUNTINGTON
       WILLIAM WILLIAMS
       OLIVER WOLCOTT

      Georgia
       BUTTON GWINNETT
       LYMAN HALL
       GEO. WALTON

      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.

      New York
       WILLIAM FLOYD
       PHILIP LIVINGSTON
       FRANCIS LEWIS
       LEWIS MORRIS

      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 M'KEAN

      North Carolina
       WILLIAM HOOPER
       JOSEPH HEWES
       JOHN PENN

      South Carolina
       EDWARD RUTLEDGE
       THOMAS HEYWARD, JR.
       THOMAS LYNCH, JR.
       ARTHUR MIDDLETON

      New Jersey
       RICHARD STOCKTON
       JOHN WITHERSPOON
       FRANCIS HOPKINS
       JOHN HART
       ABRAHAM CLARK

      