OneManGang
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I bow before the eloquence of Thomas Jefferson and the Continental Congress:
We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 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 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 & 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, & to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; & 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 the facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
he has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate & 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 relinguish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inalienable to them, & formidable to tyrants only.
he has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, &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, & convulsions from within.
he has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass to encourage their migrations hither; & 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 & paiment of their salaries.
he has erected a multitude of new offices, & sent hither swarms of officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
he has kept among us, in time of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.
he has affected to render the military independant of, & superior to, the civil power.
he has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and unackowleged by our laws; giving 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 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 assent;
for depriving us, in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury;
for transporting us beyond the 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 & fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these states;
for taking away our charters abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;
for suspending our own legislatures, & 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, & destroyed the lives of our people.
he is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries, to compleat the works of death, desolation, & 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 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, & conditions.
he has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become executioners of their friends & bretheren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
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 our 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 & magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the types of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections & 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, friends in peace.
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 of all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is & ought to be totally dissolved; & that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, &to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, and 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
Elbridge Gerry
John Adams
Robt. Treat Paine
Rhode Island
Step. Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman
Wm. Williams
Sam'el 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. M'kean
Geo. Read
Maryland
Samuel Chase
Thos. Stone
Wm. Paca
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Thomas 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
Arthur Middleton
Thos. Heyward, Junr
Thomas Lynch, Junr
Georgia
Button Gwinnett
Geo. Walton
Lyman Hall
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 bonds 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 natures god entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 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 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 & 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, & to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; & 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 the facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
he has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate & 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 relinguish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inalienable to them, & formidable to tyrants only.
he has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, &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, & convulsions from within.
he has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass to encourage their migrations hither; & 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 & paiment of their salaries.
he has erected a multitude of new offices, & sent hither swarms of officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
he has kept among us, in time of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.
he has affected to render the military independant of, & superior to, the civil power.
he has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and unackowleged by our laws; giving 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 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 assent;
for depriving us, in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury;
for transporting us beyond the 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 & fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these states;
for taking away our charters abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;
for suspending our own legislatures, & 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, & destroyed the lives of our people.
he is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries, to compleat the works of death, desolation, & 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 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, & conditions.
he has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become executioners of their friends & bretheren, or to fall themselves by their hands.
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 our 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 & magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the types of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections & 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, friends in peace.
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 of all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is & ought to be totally dissolved; & that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, &to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, and 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
Elbridge Gerry
John Adams
Robt. Treat Paine
Rhode Island
Step. Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut
Roger Sherman
Wm. Williams
Sam'el 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. M'kean
Geo. Read
Maryland
Samuel Chase
Thos. Stone
Wm. Paca
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia
Thomas 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
Arthur Middleton
Thos. Heyward, Junr
Thomas Lynch, Junr
Georgia
Button Gwinnett
Geo. Walton
Lyman Hall
