The Declaration of Independence

The thirteen United States of America's unified Declaration of Independence

When human events force one people to break free from political ties to one another and assume their rightful place as separate and equal powers among the nations of the world as guaranteed by the laws of nature and the divine will of nature, it is only fitting that they disclose the factors that led to their separation out of respect for human opinion.

All men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These are the truths we take to be self-evident. Governments are established among men to protect these rights, and they have the right to exist because the governed provide them consent. That whenever any form of government starts to work against these goals, the people have the right to change it or abolish it and establish a new one with the powers and foundation set up in a way that best serves their interests and ensures their safety and happiness. Prudence, in fact, will dictate that long-established governments should not be altered for trivial or fleeting reasons. Consequently, history has shown that people are more willing to suffer while evils persist than to make amends by doing away with the structures to which they have grown accustomed. 

However, it is their right and responsibility to overthrow such a government and to provide new guards for their future protection when a lengthy line of wrongdoings and usurpations, always aimed at the same goal, reveal a plan to subjugate them under total despotism. These colonies have endured this with patience, and now they are being forced to change their previous systems of government due to a pressing need. The current King of Great Britain has had numerous injuries and usurpations during his history. all with the direct goal of establishing an unwavering tyranny over these states. Let Facts be submitted to an honest world to demonstrate this.

The most moral and important laws for the general welfare have received his refusal to ratify.

He has prohibited his governors from passing urgent laws unless they are suspended until he gives his consent. When this has happened, he has completely forgotten to take care of the laws.


He has declined to enact more laws to accommodate sizable population districts unless those people renounce their inalienable right to representation in the legislature—a privilege that only despots may threaten.

To force legislative bodies to submit to his proposals, he has gathered them in strange, unpleasant, and far-off locations from the repository of their public records.

He has frequently dissolved Representative Houses because they dared to oppose his infringements on the rights of the people with a masculine resolve.


He has long refused to allow others to be elected following such dissolutions; as a result, the legislative branch, unable to be destroyed, returned its authority to the people in general, leaving the state vulnerable to both internal and external invasions and upheavals.

He has worked to keep people out of these states by blocking laws that would otherwise allow foreigners to become citizens, refusing to allow other laws to be passed that would otherwise encourage people to immigrate here, and tightening the requirements for new land appropriations.

By withholding his consent to laws creating the judiciary, he has impeded the administration of justice.


He has forced judges to rely only on his Will for the duration of their positions as well as the quantity and mode of payment of their salaries.

He has constructed numerous new offices and dispatched large groups of officers to harass and deplete our populace.

Without our legislatures' approval, he has maintained standing armies among us during periods of peace.

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He has had an impact in making the military stronger and independent of the civil authority.

Together with others, he has given his assent to their acts of fictitious legislation, subjecting us to a jurisdiction that is not recognized by our laws and is outside the terms of our constitution:


For quartering among us sizable contingents of armed soldiers:

For shielding them from prosecution for any murders they could conduct against the citizens of these states through a fictitious trial:

For severing our trade with every country in the world:

For taxing us without getting our permission:

For denying us the advantages of a jury trial in numerous instances:


For carrying us over the oceans to face charges we didn't commit

To eliminate the neighboring province's free system of English laws, install an arbitrary administration there, and expand its borders in order to make it a suitable model for imposing the same absolute rule on these colonies,

For removing our charters, doing away with our most important laws, and drastically changing the structures of our governments:

for putting our own legislatures on hold and announcing that they had the authority to enact laws on our behalf in any situation.


Here, by declaring us to be outside of his protection and launching a war against us, he has abdicated his government.

He has wrecked our towns, ruined our coastlines, pillaged our seas, and taken our people's lives.

Currently, he is moving vast armies of foreign mercenaries to finish the works of death, desolation, and tyranny. These actions have already started under conditions of cruelty and perfidy that are almost unimaginable in the most primitive times, and they are completely unworthy of the head of a civilized country.

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.

We have also not failed to show our British comrades consideration. We have occasionally alerted them to their legislature's attempts to impose unjustified authority on us. We have reminded them of the reasons behind our migration and establishment in this place. We have invoked their innate fairness and generosity, and through the bonds of our shared ancestry, we have summoned them to reject these appropriations that would unavoidably sever our ties and correspondence. The voices of consanguinity and justice have also gone unheard by them. As a result, we must accept the need that rejects our separation from them and treat them as friends in peace, just as we treat the rest of humanity as enemies in conflict.

Thus, in the name and on behalf of the good people of these colonies, we, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled, do solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from 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 we appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world and that they have the entire authority to declare war, make peace, form alliances, establish commerce, and carry out any other acts or things that independent states are entitled to do. And for the support of this Declaration, we mutually commit to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor, fully relying on the protection of divine Providence.

Acknowledged,

Georgia


Gwinnett Button

Hall Lyman

Walton George

Carolina

Hooper, William

Hewes, Joseph

Penn John

Carolina

Rutledge, Edward

Heyward, Thomas Jr.

Thomas Lynch, Jr.

Middleton, Arthur

Massachusetts

John C. Hancock

Maryland

Chase Samuel

Paca William

Thomas Stone

Carrollton native Charles Carroll

Virginia

George Wythe

Lee, Richard Henry

Jefferson Thomas

Benjamin J. Harrison

Nelson Thomas, Jr.

Lee, Francis Lightfoot

Braxton Carter

Pennsylvania

Morris Robert

Benjamin I. Rush

Franklin Benjamin

Morton John

George Clymer

James Smith

George Taylor

Wilson James

George Ross

Delaware

Rodney Caesar

George Perel

McKean Thomas

New York

Floyd, William

Livingston, Philip

Francis Lewis

Morris Lewis

New Jersey

Stockton, Richard

The actor John Witherspoon

Hopkinson, Francis

John Hart

Abraham Clark

New Hampshire

Bartlett, Joshua

Whipple, William

Massachusetts

Adams, Samuel

John D. Adams

Paine Robert Treat

Gerry Elbridge

Rhode