Is it time for this man to declare
his independence from King George and his Republican administration?
Is it time to rewrite this document
so that it will apply to the present?
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.
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