Declaration of Independence

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Declaration of Independence

Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776

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 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 f‌i rmness 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