In the summer of 1776, more than a year after American
colonists had begun their rebellion against Great Britain, the Second
Continental Congress debated a resolution for independence. A committee of five
worked on the document, but it was Thomas Jefferson who prepared the initial
draft and whose eloquent phrasing made it a masterpiece of political writing.
The text of the declaration contains three major sections: a statement of
principle, a list of grievances against King George III, and the formal
announcement of independence. Listed at the bottom of the document are the names
of the men who signed the Declaration. They are grouped by state and listed in
alphabetical order.Their full names are provided, although some may have used
abbreviations in the original document.
Declaration of Independence
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:
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 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.
Connecticut: Samuel Huntington, Roger Sherman, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott Delaware: Thomas McKean, George Read, Caesar Rodney Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton Maryland: Charles Carroll, Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone Massachusetts: John Adams, Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gerry, John Hancock, Robert Treat Paine New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, Matthew Thornton, William Whipple New Jersey: Abraham Clark, John Hart, Francis Hopkinson, Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon New York: William Floyd, Francis Lewis, Philip Livingston, Lewis Morris North Carolina: Joseph Hewes, William Hooper, John Penn Pennsylvania: George Clymer, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, John Morton, George Ross, Benjamin Rush, Jason Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson Rhode Island: William Ellery, Stephen Hopkins South Carolina: Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton, Edward Rutledge Virginia: Carter Braxton, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Jefferson, Francis Lightfoot Lee, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Nelson, Jr., George Wythe
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