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The Declaration of
Independence gives the values, beliefs and philosophies
of the Founders.
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 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 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 meantime 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
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 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 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,
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
Have you ever
wondered what happened to those men who signed the Declaration
of Independence? Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned by
the British. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army. Five
were captured by the British as traitors and tortured before they
died. Nine of the 56 fought and died from their wounds or the
incredible hardships of the Revolutionary War. When these merchants,
lawyers, jurists, farmers and plantation owners signed the Declaration
of Independence, they signed and pledged their fortunes, their
honor and the ultimate sacrifice - their lives.
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