                        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 endeavored 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 legislature.

  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 legislature, 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 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 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.

  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, whole 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.


                           New Hampshire
        JOSIAH BARTLETT                         MATTHEW THORNTON
        WM. WHIPPLE

                         Massachusetts Bay
        SAML. ADAMS                             ROBT. TREAT PAINE
        JOHN ADAMS                              ELBRIDGE GERRY

                             Rhode Island
        STEP. HOPKINS                           WILLIAM ELLERY

                             Connecticut
        ROGER SHERMAN                           WM. WILLIAMS
        SAMUEL HUNTINGTON                       OLIVER WOLCOTT

                               New York
        WM. FLOYD                               FRANS. LEWIS
        PHIL. LIVINGSTON                        LEWIS MORRIS

                              New Jersey
        RICHD. STOCKTON                         JOHN HART
        JNO. WITHERSPOON                        ABRA. CLARK
        FRAS. HOPKINSON

                              Pennsylvania
        ROBT. MORRIS                            JAS. SMITH
        BENJAMIN RUSH                           GEO. TAYLOR
        BENJA. FRANKLIN                         JAMES WILSON
        JOHN MORTON                             GEO. ROSS
        GEO. CLYMER

                               Delaware
        CAESAR RODNEY                           THO. McKEAN
        GEO. READ

                               Maryland
        SAMUEL CHASE                            CHARLES CARROLL
        WM. PACA                                  of Carrollton
        THOS. STONE

                               Virginia
        GEORGE WYTHE                            THOS. NELSON, JR.
        RICHARD HENRY LEE                       FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE
        TH. JEFFERSON                           CARTER BRAXTON
        BENJA. HARRISON

                            North Carolina
        WM. HOOPER                              JOHN PENN
        JOSEPH HEWES

                            South Carolina
        EDWARD RUTLEDGE                         THOMAS LYNCH, JUNR.
        THOS. HEYWARD, JUNR.                    ARTHUR MIDDLETON

                                Georgia
        BUTTON GWINNETT                         GEO. WALTON
        LYMAN HALL
