THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

DRAFTED BY THOMAS JEFFERSON BETWEEN

JUNE 11 AND JUNE 28, 1776,

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE IS THE AMERICAN

NATION'S MOST CHERISHED SYMBOL OF LIBERTY AND

JEFFERSON'S MOST ENDURING MONUMENT.

IN EXALTED AND UNFORGETTABLE PHRASES,

JEFFERSON EXPRESSED THE CONVICTIONS IN THE MINDS

AND HEARTS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.

THE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE DECLARATION

WAS NOT NEW; ITS IDEALS OF INDIVIDUAL LIBERTY HAD

ALREADY BEEN EXPRESSED BY JOHN LOCKE AND

THE CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHERS.

WHAT JEFFERSON DID WAS TO SUMMARIZE THIS PHILOSOPHY

IN "SELF-EVIDENT TRUTHS" AND SET FORTH A LIST OF

GRIEVANCES AGAINST THE KING IN ORDER TO JUSTIFY

BEFORE THE WORLD THE BREAKING OF TIES BETWEEN

THE COLONIES AND THE MOTHER COUNTRY.

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 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 affect 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 shown, 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.

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, have returned to the People at large for their exercise;

the State remaining in the meantime 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;

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 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 complete 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 Honour.