He
has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose
obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass
others to encourage their migrations 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 benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting
us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing
the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring 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 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.
Nor have We
been wanting in attentions 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 connections 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.
John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett,
William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock,
Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins,
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman,
Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd,
Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton,
John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris,
Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith,
George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney,
George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase,
William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe,
Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson,
Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper,
Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge,
Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett,
Lyman Hall, George Walton
WATCH
NOW
Pray
For The Peace Of Jerusalem
