Perhaps the internet could be used to remind citizens
of its history and continuing significance.
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 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 [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 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 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 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 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 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, Samuel 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
