Draft of the Declaration of Independence

A Declaration by the Representatives of United States of America, in General Congress Assembled

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for a people to advance from that subordination in which they have  hitherto remained, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the  equal and independent 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 change

We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable selfevident, that all men are created  equal and independent; that from that equal creation they derive in  rights inherent and inalienables, among which are the preservation  of life, and liberty and the pursuit of happiness;  that to secure these ends, governments are instituted among men,  deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government shall become 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  it's  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, begun at a distinguished period,  and  pursuing invariably the same object  evinces a design to subject reduce them to arbitrary power, 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 expunge their former systems of  government. the history of his present majesty is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations, among which no fact stands  single or solitary to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest,  all of which have in direct object the  establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. to prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we  pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.

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 neglected utterly 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 dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

[he has dissolved]he has refused for a long space of time,  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 suffered the administration of justice totally to cease in some of these colonies, refusing his assent  to laws for establishing judiciary powers:

he has made our judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount of their salaries.

he has erected a multitude of new offices by a self-assumed  power, and sent hither swarms of  officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

he has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies and  ships of war:

he has affected to render the military, independent of and superior to civil power:

he has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to  our constitutions, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to  their pretended acts of legislation,  for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

for protecting them, by 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 of the benefits of trial by jury;

for transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses;

for taking away our charters, 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, withdrawing his governors, and declaring us out of his alegiance and  protection;

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 and perfidy  unworthy the head of a civilized  nation:

he 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 of existence:

he has incited treasonable insurrections of our fellow citizens with the allurements of forfeiture and confiscation of our property:

he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's  most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant  people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into  slavery in another hemispere, or to incure miserable death in their  transportation hither. this piratical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of  Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing  every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable  commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no  fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to  rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he  had deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also  obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the  liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

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  people who mean to be free. future ages will scarce believe that the hardiness of one man, adventured within the short compass of twelve years only, on so many acts of tyranny without a mask, over  a people fostered and fixed in principles of liberty.

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 these our states. we have reminded them  of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here, no one  of which could warrant so strange a pretension: that these were  effected at the expence of our own blood and treasure, unassisted  by the wealth or the strength of Great Britain: that in constituing  indeed our several forms of government, we had adopted one common  king, thereby laying a foundation for perpetual league and amity  with them: but that submission to their parliament was no part of  our constitution, nor ever in idea, if history may be credited: and  we appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, as well as to  the ties of our common kindred to disavow these  usurpations, which were likely to interrupt our correspondence and  connections. they too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity, and when occasions have been given them, by the regular course of their laws, of removing from their councils the  disturbers of our harmony, they have by their free election  re-established them in power. at this very time too they are permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only soldiers of  our common blood, but Scotch and foreign mercenaries to invade and deluge us in blood. these facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce forever  these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our former love for them, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. we might have been a free and a great people together; but a communication of grandeur  and of freedom it seems is below their dignity. be it so, since they will have it: the road to [glory and] happiness and to glory  is open to us too; we will climb it apart from them in a separate  state and acquiesce in the necessity which denounces pronounces  our everlasting Adieu! eternal separation!

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in  General Congress, assembled do, in the name, and by the  authority of the good people of these states, reject and renounce  the allegiance and subjection to the kinds of Great Britain and all  others whe may herafter claim by, through, or under them; we utterly dissolve and break off all political connection which may  have heretofore subsisted between us and the people or parliament  of Great Britain; and finally we do assert and declare these  colonies to be free and independent states, and that as free and independent states  they shall herafter 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 we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes  and our sacred honor.