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 creat-
ed 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 gov-
erned.

That  whenever  any  Form  of  Government becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the Right  of the People to alter or  to abol-
ish 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 Happi-
ness. Prudence, indeed, will  dictate that Governments long  es-
tablished should not be changed for light and transient  causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shown, 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 invar-
iably 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 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 neces-
sary 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,  in-
capable 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 of Naturalization of  For-
eigners; 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 super-
ior 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  mercen-
aries to compleat  the works of  death, desolation and  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 constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high
Seas to bear  Arms against their  Country, to become  the execu-
tioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves  by
their Hands.

He has excited  domestic insurrections amongst  us, and has  en-
deavoured  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  Re-
dress 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 attention 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 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.

Attested, CHARLES THOMSON, Secretary

New Hampshire
 JOSIAH BARTLETT
 WILLIAM WHIPPLE
 MATTHEW THORNTON

Massachusetts-Bay
 SAMUEL ADAMS
 JOHN ADAMS
 ROBERT TREAT PAINE
 ELBRIDGE GERRY

Rhode Island
 STEPHEN HOPKINS
 WILLIAM ELLERY

Connecticut
 ROGER SHERMAN
 SAMUEL HUNTINGTON
 WILLIAM WILLIAMS
 OLIVER WOLCOTT

Georgia
 BUTTON GWINNETT
 LYMAN HALL
 GEO. WALTON

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.

New York
 WILLIAM FLOYD
 PHILIP LIVINGSTON
 FRANCIS LEWIS
 LEWIS MORRIS

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 M'KEAN

North Carolina
 WILLIAM HOOPER
 JOSEPH HEWES
 JOHN PENN

South Carolina
 EDWARD RUTLEDGE
 THOMAS HEYWARD, JR.
 THOMAS LYNCH, JR.
 ARTHUR MIDDLETON

New Jersey
 RICHARD STOCKTON
 JOHN WITHERSPOON
 FRANCIS HOPKINS
 JOHN HART
 ABRAHAM CLARK