A Diclaration by the Representatives of the UNITED STATES

OF AMERICA, in General Congress assembled.

one

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for the people to disolve the political bands which have com connected them with. another, and to which they tow hitherto the earth the sparate and equal

·Jume

the

among

powers of

which the laws of nature. & of nature's god entitle them, a decent respect

to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare which impel them to the separation.

self-e

cordent.

the

causes

We hold these bruths to be saved that that all man are created equal. Hindspondant; that fear of it and other What

they ar rights, that

creair with

equal essation they stemve

inherent finalienable, among man

life liberty, & the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these mo vernments are instikatted

the convent of the

go.

deriving their just powers from

among men,
governed;
that whenever

Sot becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to aller

will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light & transient causes. and accordingly all spemena hath shown that disposed to suffer while was and

sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they

ry are accustomed but

when a longtruir of abuses & nousprations [begun at ad stunguushed previo

&pursuing invarially

the

came

under at soliste Despotom

object, winces a design to stod reduce

them to premer, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government & to provide new quards for their future security, such has The necessity which constrains them to leapings] their former systems of government.

been the patient sufferance of these colonces. & such is now

the

alter

the history of his present, wasperity.

A

yourpations [among which, appears

history offensmelling injures and

no solitary fact

to contra

- dict the uniform tenor of the rest ]att of check have in direct object the over these states. to prove this, fet facobe

establishment of an absolute tyranny.

submitted to a candid world [ for the truth of which we pledge a faith yot unsullied by falsehood]

he has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the pub.

-lic good:

he has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate & pressing importance,

unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be dhained,

utterly

and when so suspended, he has med lacted attenby to attend to them. he has refused to pass. • other laws for the accomodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of representation, a right inestimable to them, & formidable to tyrants only:

in the legislature

he has called together legislation bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, & distant from their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguery them into compliance

the
depository of
with his measures;

he has dissolved Representative houses repentedly & continually for opposing

manly firmness his invasions wood, he has refused for a long space of time to us others to be crated.

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whorely the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the state remaining in the mean time, caposed to all the dangers of invasion from without & convulsions within: he has indeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose destructing the laws for naturalization of forcigness, refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, & raising the conditions of new ap. -propations of lands.

he has suffered the administration of justice [(totally to cease in some.

these

a fefusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers:
on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices,

he has made [our] judges dependant

the

& payment

and amount of their salaries:

he has erected a multitude of offices [by a self- assumed power, & vent hi-then. swarms • of officers to harross ver •people & cat out their substance:

without the

power:

he has kept among. us in times of peace, Sanding armies & wheps of war] The consent of our he has affected to render the military, independent of & superior to the civil, he has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions and unacknoleged by 1 our laws; giving his assent to their foretended to Alegislation, for quartering large bodies of armed Croops among us; .

for protecting them

which

A

by

a mock trial from punishment for any murding

m

the inhabitants of these states;

they should commet. for cutting offour trade with all parts of the world, for imposing tuxes on us without our consent; for depriving us of the benefits of trial by jury,

for hans prooing us beyond. I seas to be tried for pretended offences: for at dating the live system of laws on and instrument in the rains ho on artibury fromment

Cave

legislatures & declaring Henselers invested with, legislati for us in all cases whatmever,

he has abdicatio government here, [with driving his governors, & declaring us out

of his allegrance & prosection]

he hors plundered.

our seas, ravaged our courts, burnt our towns & destroyed the

he is at this time transporting large.

mercenaries to compleat f. forensyn merce

the works of death desolation blyranny already begun with circumstances

seandy paralleled in the most band arces ages aristotally

ww I envelly be perfidy unworthy the head of a curled nation

he hand snored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian

all

ages sexes, & conditions [of existence.]

undistinguished destruction of

he has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow-citizens with the allierements of forfeiters Y confination of our properly, tha e labd he has waged init wer against hun ar nosture calf, violating it's most va -end rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never fended him, caplicating & carrying them into slavery in another hemis sphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither, this pinatical warfare the opprobrum of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain (determined to keep opena market where MEN should be bought & sold he has proshbuted his negative for suppressing legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce; and that this assemblage of hom

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no exciting these

very people to rise in an and to provchase that livery of which he has deprived there. whom he also Binded them: thus paying

If distinguished dis, he is now.
amorgus
by murdering
If former

which he

upon

The people comes committed urges

against

the liberties of one people, with crimes them to commit against the lives of another]

Tonly

nevery stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble our repeated qual tions have been answered by repeated injuries. u prince ashose character is thus mashed' by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit mean to be free fuhere ages will scarce believe

to be the meter of a people who

that the hardness of me man, adventures within the short compass of twelve years to the foundation to broad & undisguised, for byranny

only, as gemmeyenekamcheccogh, ever, a 'peoplé fostered V fixes in princirdo of trader" freedom]

diction over

our

pretension:

were

Nor have we been warding in attentions to our Bonshoh brethren: wel varned them from time to time fattempts by their legislature to extend a juris. an in we have •[these our stated] we have reminded them of the circumstances of • emigration & settlement here, [no one of which could warrant so change a that these effected at the expence of our own blood & beasure, unassisted by the wealth or the strength of. Great Britain: that in constituting indeed our several forms of government, we had adopted. king, thereby. laying a foundation for perpetual league & amity with them. but that submission to their parliament was no past of our constitution, nor ever in idea if history may be credited; and] appealed to their native justice & magnanimity [as well as to the lies four common kindred to disavow them warpations which [were likely do inserupt our correspondence. thommation. they too have been deaf to the voice of justice & We must Baroton I consanguinity. V when recasions have been given them, by the regular course of

connection &

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one common