http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html
The Declaration of
In CONGRESS,
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of
When in the Course of human events [Important concept], it becomes necessary for one people [Important concept] to
dissolve the political bands [Important concept] which have connected them with another, and to
assume among the powers of the earth [Important concept], the separate and equal station [Important concept] to which
the Laws of Nature [Important concept] and of Nature's God [Important concept] entitle them, a decent respect to the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel
them to the separation [Important concept].
[Following is the first premise of
the logical/deductive argument in the Declaration; it is the theory of
government which gives The People the duty and right to replace one
government with another.]
We hold these truths [Important concept] to be self-evident[Important concept] , that all men [Important concept]are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights [Important concept], that among these are Life,
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established
should not be changed for light and transient causes [Important concept]; 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 [Important rule or proposition] But when a long train of abuses and
usurpations [Important concept], pursuing invariably the same Object [Important concept] evinces a design to reduce
them under absolute Despotism [Important concept], 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.
[This is the second premise of the argument. It presents evidence showing that the government of King George does NOT secure the unalienable rights of The People.]
The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III] is a history of
repeated injuries and usurpations [Important concept], all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny [Important concept]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, he 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 [Important concept], 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.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of
these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of
Foreigners [Important concept]; 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 [Important concept].
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 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 and 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 [Important concept] 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 [Important concept], which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as
we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
[This is the conclusion of
the argument. Given the theory that states the conditions
in which revolution is a right and a duty; and given the evidence
that those conditions for revolution have been met; the conclusion
(it's time for a revolution) seems necessarily true and is
therefore compelling.]
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 the 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
The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert
Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson,
John Hart, Abraham Clark
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer,
James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles
Carroll of
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas
Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas
Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton