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.

The Declaration is conceived here as a continual process. This is denoted by the phrase when in the course of human events which implies that such a course can happen more than once. The dissolution of political bands means that there is some breakdown that is accompanied by a kind of reset within the political systems. The reset in this case concerns the Laws of Nature and Nature's God. The phrase powers of the earth is an interesting one especially appearing as it does so close to Laws of Nature and Nature's God. It is generally assumed that this phrase means "sovereign status". The audience is assumed to be Great Britain where this phraseology is involved, and the wording of separate but equal will appear later in the debate for civil rights. If these assumptions are granted, then powers of the Earth probably means something like "kingdoms and their kings". The separate but equal part to that proves difficult to define since typically this would mean that there would be some other kind of king. This is not defined to exist here, and so the reader is left to wonder what manner of organization is going to follow. To be equal would imply a kind of king if one were speaking to a nation that possessed a king. Another way to think about the powers of the Earth might be a simple raw form of power that the Earth itself holds such as earthquakes or floods. This could be the intended meaning since nature appears so close in the text. This meaning might be more like "and to assume as a force of nature the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature's God entitle them". Both interpretations are parseable and fit the context. Both leave ambiguity for what manner of equality is going to follow. The last part states that communication should occur when the above conditional clauses are met to let other people know why a separation has transpired.

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, 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.

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. This is maybe the most famous sentence from the entire Declaration, and certainly one that proves to be the most controversial. Slavery still exists at this time, and an entire war will erupt over whether or not this line applies to slaves. As the verbiage declares "all men are created equal" and not "some men are", it is evident that the ground on which the documents rests is one of freedom and not slavery. Unalienable rights indicates rights that are not capable of being removed or transferred. Sometimes this also appears as "inalienable" which means the same thing. that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness has also engendered no end of debate in terms of what the definition of these terms are. An interesting minor difference to consider here, however, is that the "pursuit of Happiness" is indicated and not Happiness itself.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. Having defined the self-evident truth concerning rights, the only thing left for government to do is to be organized such that those rights are enforced by the consent of the people being governed. If the government in question should become abusive and not representative of a form to guarantee these rights, then the people can alter or abolish it entirely. Notice here the term rights is used, and not privileges. A right is a guaranteed property that cannot be removed by a government and is granted by God. A privilege on the other hand, can be granted or removed. Usually, the distinction is made where licenses are involved. For instance, curiously, one must acquire a "hunting and fishing license" in order to fish and hunt. One might ask whether these are not rights, since the alternative if one can do neither of these things is potential starvation if that is the only means by which one can feed themselves. Being able to feed one's self should surely fall under "safety and security" and certainly "pursuit of happiness" since all three are jeopardized if a person is starving.

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.A principle is present along with a psychological observation. People ought not change the government because they do not care for a given personality, but most given the chance will go on suffering instead of changing the government anyway. 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. When a government has exceeded itself and become tyranny without regard to the people it governs, those people have a right and a duty to rid themselves of such a government and to institute something else that guards their rights. --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 colonies have grown tired of being abused and so change has come. 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. The British King is guilty of encroaching on the above rights and is exercising a tyrannical hold on the colonies. The proof will follow as to why this is so.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

The King does not care for the public good and refuses to legislate on their interests and welfare.

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 utterly neglected to attend to them.

The King is maliciously interfering with the ability of the Governors to govern and refuses to allow them to hold any real authority. Once their authority is abrogated, no further actions are taken that need to be attended to.

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.

The only way people are going to be represented is if the King is the sole source of authority and give up their right to be represented in the Legislature. If the King is unjust, which the argument advanced here is just that, then the people have no effective rights.

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.

The King is making it difficult to attend legislative bodies so that whatever he says goes unchallenged.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

The King dissolves any Representative body that disagrees with him.

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 mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

Inducing chaos, the King allows no other elections and the people lack representation such that the State is weak.

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.

The King is weakening the States by not allowing people to populate them either through immigration or land ownership.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

Not giving the go-ahead for establishing courts is an impediment to justice.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

Corrupting Judges makes them dependent on the approval of the corrupter.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

New offices with new powers are bothering the colonies, and demanding tributes of various kinds.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

This is somewhat like the above in that the Standing Armies must be supported by the people without their approval.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

Martial Law that is preferential to the Crown of England. The result is a police state.

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:

Foreign agents are present operating outside any representation by the colonies with the approval of the King.

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

The troops must be maintained by the population against their will.

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

They are protected from crimes committed against the colonies by a sham justice system.

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

Economic isolation makes the colonies depend on the Crown.

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

Taxation without representation.

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

Two-tiered justice system designed to deny justice to the colonies.

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

Changing jurisdiction for political persecution.

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:

Traditional law has been suspended in favor of an outside government which has made its size larger so as to impose its foreign influence.

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

Any autonomy has been taken and tradition has been tossed out the door so as to impose the Will of the King on the Governments of the colonies.

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

Normal law has been suspended and replaced with the newly imposed Crown Law.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

The colonies have been defined as the enemy by the Sovereign that is supposed to have their protection and representation in mind.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

The King is essentially acting like a pirate or a foreign invader.

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.

As if all that is not enough, he has hired foreign mercenaries to aid in killing colonists.

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.

If a colonist is taken as an English Crown prisoner, they must join the Crown in killing the colonists or die at the leisure of the Crown.

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.

The Crown is using the Natives who they have supplanted with the colonies against the colonists by making secret agreements with them.

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.

No objections by the colonists are being answered in a way to provide relief. Because of this, the King is a tyrant and cannot rule over the colonists any longer.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish 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.

No appeal or caution is being heeded by the Crown. Because of this, everything is leading toward war. In war, the status is no longer as friends, but enemies.

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.

All ties are being cut, and all powers are being invested in the States. The support of this statement derives from God. The colonists have placed their Lives, Fortunes and "sacred Honor", which in this case means something close to a "Holy oath or commission", to one another under the direction of God.

President of Congress

John Hancock (Massachusetts Bay)

New Hampshire

Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts Bay

Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island and Providence Plantations

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