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Written by Thomas Jefferson,
edited by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.
America Isn't A Thing, Tangible
America Is An Ideal
In Congress, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
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 & 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.
Be good. Do good
Don't Be An Ass!
