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{\LARGE THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE}

{\Large In Congress, July 4, 1776}

{\large The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of
America}
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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
natures 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 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 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 offenses: for abolishing the free
system of English laws 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 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 friend 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 represenatives 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. 

\hspace*{2in}John Hancock\newline

\begin{tabular}{lll}
{\it New Hampshire}&{\it Pennsylvania}&{\it Virginia} \\
Josiah Barlett & Robt. Morris & George Wythe \\
Wm. Whipple & Benjamin Rush & Richard Henry Lee \\
Matthew Thornton & Benj. Franklin & Th. Jefferson \\
 & John Morton & Benj. Harrison \\
{\it Rhode Island} & Geo. Clymer & Ths. Nelson, Jr. [sic] \\
Step. Hopkins & Jas. Smith & Francis Lightfoot Lee \\
William Elery & Geo. Taylor & Carter Braxton \\
 & James Wilson & \\
{\it Connecticut} & Geo. Ross & {\it North Carolina} \\
Roger Sherman &  & Wm. Hooper \\
Sam'el Huntington & {\it Massachusetts-Bay} & Joseph Hewes \\
Wm. Williams & Saml. Adams & John Penn \\
Oliver Wolcot & John Adams & \\
 & Robt. Treat Paine & {\it South Carolina} \\
{\it New York} & Elbridge Gerry & Edward Rutledge \\
Wm. Floyd &  & Thos. Heyward, Junr. \\
Phil. Livingston & {\it Delaware} & Thomas Lynch, Junr. \\
Frans. Lewis & Caesar Rodney & Arthur Middleton \\
Lewis Morris & Geo. Read & \\
 & Tho. M'Kean [sic] & {\it Georgia} \\
{\it New Jersey} &  & Button Gwinnett  \\
Richd. Stockton & {\it Maryland} & Lyman Hall \\
Jno. Witherspoon & Samuel Chase & Geo. Walton \\
Fras. Hopkinson & Wm. Paca & \\
John Hart & Thos. Stone & \\
Abra. Clark & Charles Carroll of Carrollton & \\
\end{tabular}
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