The American Wisdom Series

Presents
Pamphlet #712

The Declaration Of Independence
of the Thirteen Colonies

                                                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 [George III] 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 meantime 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 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 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 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
                        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, 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 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 the 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.

                        The signers of the Declaration represented the new States as follows:

                        New Hampshire:

                        Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

                        Massachusetts:

                        John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

                        Rhode Island:

                        Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

                        Connecticut:

                        Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

                        New York:

                        William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

                        New Jersey:

                        Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

                        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 McKean

                        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

                        North Carolina:

                        William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

                        South Carolina:

                        Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

                        Georgia:

                        Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton