avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, power. XIV. That the people have a right to uniform gove and, therefore, that no government, separate from, or inde of the government of Virginia, ought to be erected or esta within the limits thereof. XV. That no free government, or the blessings of liber be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice eration, temperance, frugality, and virtue, and by frequent recu to fundamental principles. XVI. That religion, or the duty which we owe to our C and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reaso conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are e entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dicta conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice tian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other. are, and of right ought to be, free and independent The committee consisted of Thomas Jefferson of Virgin Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Penn Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and R. R. Livingston York. Jefferson drew up the draft of the proposed dec but its phraseology was carefully revised by the other of the committee and afterwards by Congress. The tion of Independence was agreed to on July 4 and order proclaimed before the army and in each one of the state sequently (August 2) the members of Congress then signed their names to the document. At least six si were added later, making fifty-six in all. Several of th signed it on August 2 were absent when it was adopted o and not all who voted for it in July signed it the f August. In the original document, as preserved in partment of State, the whole matter runs on without except for numerous dashes. The present paragra that found in the copy inserted in the congressional jour DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, 1776 The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United State I. When, in the course of human events, it becomes nec one people to dissolve the political bands which have conne with another, and to assume among the powers of the 1 Revised Statutes of the United States, pp. 3-5. Second Edition. 1878. structive of these ends, it is the right of the people to al abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its found such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happines dence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordi experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolish forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long t abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government a provide new guards for their future security. Such has be patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the nec which constrains them to alter their former systems of govern The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history peated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the e lishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove let facts be submitted to a candid world. III. He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governers to pass laws of immediate pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utte neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of la districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the rig of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them a formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, unco for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither ing the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by r assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for of their offices and the amount and payment of their salari He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hith of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing ar out the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of an to the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdicti to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws; assent to their acts of pretended legislation: For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishmer murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of the 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 For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended For abolishing the free system of English laws in a ne province,1 establishing therein an arbitrary government larging its boundaries so as to render it at once an examp instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into thes For taking away our charters, abolishing our most laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our gover 1 Quebec. The reference is to the Quebec Act, 1774. nation. He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on seas to bear arms against their country, to become the exec of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and deavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the m Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistin destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. IV. In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned dress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions hav answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to ruler of a free people. V. Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British bre We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their lature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and s ment here. We have appealed to their native justice and m nimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our con kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably rupt our connections and correspondence. They too have deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, t fore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separa and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in wa peace friends. VI. We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of erica, in general Congress assembled, appealing to the supreme Ju of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to |