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 The Declaration of Independence
of the United States of America
by David
M. Fitzpatrick
Last updated
Sunday, 26 February 2006
There is often confusion about what the Founding Fathers intended, and what
the Declaration of Independence says. I've reproduced the text here, with
appropriate commentary about the Declaration.
See also: The
Constitution, The Bill of Rights |
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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.
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"...and equal station to which
the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God": Nature's God is not identified as
the Christian God, but does show the founders recognized an overall belief
in a higher power. They also acknowledge the Laws of Nature... "Nature's
God" sounds vaguely pagan, druidic, or otherwise.
However, the key point here is
that the Declaration of Independence does not form the foundation of our
nation or our system of laws. That's the
Constitution. The Declaration is important, historically, because it
was the first official step towards us becoming a country. But that's it.
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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.
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All MEN are created equal.
Governments are instituted among MEN. Theoretically, the gender neutral
could be attributed, except that at the time, the founders really weren't
interested in the rights of women and certainly not Negroes, who were not
considered men but barely above animal status. Considering how particular
the founders were, if they had intended to include women and Negroes, they
likely would have specifically said "all humans are created equal." Even
then, Negroes were not likely considered humans. But are we to ignore the
rights of all human beings, regardless of gender or color? Of course not!
And if we can recognize women and blacks equally, despite the original
intentions of this writing, we can certainly understand that the Christian
God is not mandated to be an American. (Consider also that Thomas Jefferson,
the author, was a Freethinker.) |
- 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 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; 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 harrass 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 & 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 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.
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.
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The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
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Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton |
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John PennSouth Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton |
Massachusetts:
John HancockMaryland:
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 |
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George RossDelaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean |
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis MorrisNew Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark |
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton |
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