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, having 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 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 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 suffrance 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, 
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 endeavored to prevent the population of these states; 
for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of 
foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their 
migration 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 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 
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 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 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 citizen 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 
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 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 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 connection 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 out 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. 
