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Unit 2 The Revolutionary War – The Declaration of Independence (8-2.3)

Intro
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
Preamble 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, laying 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 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, 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 sufferance 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.
Indictment
3. He has refused to pass other
Laws for the accommodation of
1. He has refused his Assent to large districts of people, unless
Laws, the most wholesome and those people would relinquish the
necessary for the public good. right of Representation in the
Legislature, a right inestimable to
them and formidable to tyrants only.
2. He has forbidden his Governors to
pass Laws of immediate and 4. He has called together legislative
pressing importance, unless bodies at places unusual,
suspended in their operation till his uncomfortable, and distant from the
Assent should be obtained; and depository of their public Records,
when so suspended, he has utterly for the sole purpose of fatiguing
neglected to attend to them. them into compliance with his
measures.
 5. He has dissolved Representative Murders which they should commit
Houses repeatedly, for opposing on the Inhabitants of these States:
with manly firmness his invasions on
the rights of the people. 16. For cutting off our Trade with all
parts of the world:
6. He has refused for a long time,
after such dissolutions, to cause 17. For imposing Taxes on us
others to be elected; whereby the without our Consent:
Legislative powers, incapable of 18. For depriving us in many cases,
Annihilation, have returned to the of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
People at large for their exercise; the
State remaining in the mean time 19. For transporting us beyond Seas
exposed to all the dangers of to be tried for pretended offences
invasion from without, and 20. For abolishing the free System of
Still the convulsions within.
English Laws in a neighbouring
indictment
7. He has endeavoured to prevent Province, establishing therein an
the population of these States; for Arbitrary government, and enlarging
that purpose obstructing the Laws its Boundaries so as to render it at
for Naturalization of Foreigners; once an example and fit instrument
refusing to pass others to encourage for introducing the same absolute
their migrations hither, and raising rule into these Colonies:
the conditions of new Appropriations 21. For taking away our Charters,
of Lands. abolishing our most valuable Laws,
8. He has obstructed the and altering fundamentally the
Administration of Justice, by refusing Forms of our Governments:
his Assent to Laws for establishing 22. For suspending our own
Judiciary powers. Legislatures, and declaring
9. He has made Judges dependent themselves invested with power to
on his Will alone, for the tenure of legislate for us in all cases
their offices, and the amount and whatsoever.
payment of their salaries. 23. He has abdicated Government
10. He has erected a multitude of here, by declaring us out of his
New Offices, and sent hither swarms Protection and waging War against
of Officers to harass our people, and us.
eat out their substance. 24. He has plundered our seas,
11. He has kept among us, in times ravaged our Coasts, burnt our
of peace, Standing Armies without towns, and destroyed the lives of our
the Consent of our legislatures. people.

12. He has affected to render the 25.He is at this time transporting

Military independent of and superior large Armies of foreign Mercenaries
to the Civil power. to complete the works of death,
desolation and tyranny, already
13. He has combined with others to begun with circumstances of Cruelty
subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the
our constitution, and most barbarous ages, and totally
unacknowledged by our laws; giving unworthy the Head of a civilized
his Assent to their Acts of pretended nation.
Legislation:
14. For Quartering large bodies of
armed troops among us:

15. For protecting them, by a mock

Trial, from punishment for any 26.He has constrained our fellow
Citizens taken Captive on the high
 Seas to bear Arms against their endeavored to bring on the
Country, to become the executioners inhabitants of our frontiers, the
of their friends and Brethren, or to merciless Indian Savages, whose
fall themselves by their Hands. known rule of warfare, is an
undistinguished destruction of all
27. He has excited domestic ages, sexes and conditions.
insurrections amongst us, and has

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.

Denuncia
tion 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.

Conclusion
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.

Georgia Joseph Hewes Benjamin Harrison

Button Gwinnett John Penn Thomas Nelson,
Jr.
Lyman Hall
Francis Lightfoot
George Walton South Carolina Lee
Edward Rutledge Carter Braxton
Maryland Thomas Heyward,
Jr.
Samuel Chase
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
William Paca Pennsylvania
Arthur Middleton
Thomas Stone Robert Morris
Charles Carroll of Benjamin Rush
Carrollton Virginia
Benjamin Franklin
George Wythe
John Morton
North Carolina Richard Henry Lee
George Clymer
William Hooper Thomas Jefferson
James Smith Francis Lewis Massachusetts
George Taylor Lewis Morris John Hancock
James Wilson Samuel Adams
George Ross New Jersey John Adams
Richard Stockton Robert Treat
Paine
Delaware John Witherspoon
Elbridge Gerry
Caesar Rodney Francis Hopkinson
George Read John Hart
Rhode Island
Thomas McKean Abraham Clark
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
New Hampshire New Hampshire
Matthew Thornton Josiah Bartlett
Connecticut
William Whipple
Roger Sherman
Samuel
Huntington
William Williams
New York Oliver Wolcott
William Floyd
Philip Livingston