Declaration of Independence (United States), in United States history, adocument proclaiming the independence of the 13 British colonies inAmerica, adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. Thedeclaration recounted the grievances of the colonies against the BritishCrown and declared the colonies to be free and independent states. Theproclamation of independence marked the culmination of a political processthat had begun as a protest against restrictions imposed by the mothercountry on colonial trade, manufacturing, and political liberty and haddeveloped into a revolutionary struggle resulting in the establishment of anew nation.After the United States was established, the statement of grievances in thedeclaration ceased to have any but historic significance. The politicalphilosophy enunciated in the declaration, however, had a continuinginfluence on political developments in America and Europe for many years.It served as a source of authority for the Bill of Rights of the USConstitution. Its influence is manifest in the Declaration of the Rights ofMan and of the Citizen, adopted by the National Assembly of France in 1789,during the French Revolution. In the 19th century, various peoples ofEurope and of Latin America fighting for freedom incorporated in theirmanifestos the principles formulated in the Declaration of Independence.The procedure by which the Declaration of Independence came into being wasas follows: On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee, in the name of the Virginiadelegates to the Continental Congress, moved that “these united coloniesare and of right ought to be free and independent States, they are absolvedfrom all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connectionbetween them and the State of Great Britain is and ought to be totallydissolved”. This motion was seconded by John Adams of Massachusetts, butaction was deferred until July 1, and the resolution was passed on the
following day. In the meantime, a committee (appointed June 11) comprisingthe delegates Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, RogerSherman, and Robert R. Livingston was preparing a declaration in line withLee’s resolution. Jefferson prepared the draft, using “neither book norpamphlet”, as he later said. Adams and Franklin made a number of minorchanges in Jefferson’s draft before it was submitted to Congress, which, onJuly 4, made a number of additional small alterations, deleted severalsections, including one condemning black slavery, incorporated Lee’sresolution, and issued the whole as the Declaration of Independence.The declaration was adopted by a unanimous vote of the delegates of 12colonies, those representing New York not voting because they had not beenauthorized to do so. On July 9, however, the New York Provincial Congressvoted to endorse the declaration. The document was copied on to parchmentin accordance with a resolution passed by Congress on July 19. On August 2,it was signed by the 53 members present. The three absentees signedsubsequently.Congress directed that copies be sent “to the Assemblies, Conventions, andCommittees or Councils of Safety, and to the several commanding officers ofthe continental troops, that it be proclaimed in each of the United Statesand at the head of the army”.Upon organization of the national government in 1789, the Declaration ofIndependence was assigned for safekeeping to the Department of State. In1841, it was deposited in the Patent Office, then a bureau of theDepartment of State; in 1877 it was returned to the State Department.Because of the rapid fading of the text and the deterioration of theparchment, the document was withdrawn from exhibition in 1894. With otherhistoric American documents, it is now enshrined in the National ArchivesExhibition Hall, Washington, D.C., and is sealed in a glass and bronze casefilled with inert helium gas. It is from this document that theaccompanying text is reproduced. In Congress July 4, 1776, The Unanimous Declaration of The Thirteen United States of AmericaWhen in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people todissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and toassume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station towhich the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respectto the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causeswhich 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 tosecure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving theirjust powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form ofGovernment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Peopleto alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, having itsfoundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as tothem shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence,indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not bechanged for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hathshown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they areaccustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations pursuinginvariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absoluteDespotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off suchGovernment, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such hasbeen the patient suffrance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessitywhich constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. Thehistory of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeatedinjuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment ofan absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts besubmitted to a candid world.He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for thepublic good.He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressingimportance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should beobtained; and when so suspended, has utterly neglected to attend to them.He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districtsof people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representationin the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrantsonly.He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable,and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the solepurpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manlyfirmness his invasions on the rights of the people.He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others tobe elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, havereturned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining inthe meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, andconvulsions within.He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for thatpurpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing topass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditionsof new Appropriations of Lands.He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent toLaws for establishing Judiciary Powers.He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of theiroffices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms ofOfficers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without theConsent of our legislatures.He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to theCivil Power.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to ourconstitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to theiracts of pretended legislation.For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders whichthey 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 offenses:For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province,establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundariesso as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducingthe same absolute rule into these Colonies:For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, andaltering fundamentally, the Forms of our Governments:For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested withPower to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever:He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection andwaging War against us.He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, anddestroyed 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 withcircumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the mostbarbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.He has constrained our fellow Citizen taken Captive on the high Seas tobear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of theirfriends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored tobring 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 themost humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only byrepeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every actwhich may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.Nor have We been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We havewarned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend anunwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of thecircumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed totheir native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the tiesof our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitablyinterrupt our connection and correspondence. They too have been deaf to thevoice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in thenecessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold therest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, inGeneral Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the worldfor the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority ofthe good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That theseUnited Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and thatall political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, isand 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 IndependentStates may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with afirm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge toeach other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.Chronology Of Events: June 7, 1776 to January 18, 1777 1776 June 7 — Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, receives Richard Henry Lee’sresolution urging Congress to declare independence. June 11 — Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, RogerSherman, and Robert R. Livingston appointed to a committee to draft adeclaration of independence. American army retreats to Lake Champlain fromCanada. June 12 – 27 — Jefferson, at the request of the committee, drafts adeclaration, of which only a fragment exists. Jefferson’s clean, or “fair”copy, the “original Rough draught,” is reviewed by the committee. Bothdocuments are in the manuscript collections of the Library of Congress. June 28 — A fair copy of the committee draft of the Declaration ofIndependence is read in Congress. July 1 – 4 — Congress debates and revises the Declaration ofIndependence. July 2 — Congress declares independence as the British fleet and armyarrive at New York. July 4 — Congress adopts the Declaration of Independence in the morningof a bright, sunny, but cool Philadelphia day. John Dunlap prints theDeclaration of Independence. These prints are now called “DunlapBroadsides.” Twenty-four copies are known to exist, two of which are in the
Library of Congress. One of these was Washington’s personal copy. July 5 — John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, dispatchesthe first of Dunlap’s broadsides of the Declaration of Independence to thelegislatures of New Jersey and Delaware. July 6 — Pennsylvania Evening Post of July 6 prints the first newspaperrendition of the Declaration of Independence. July 8 — The first public reading of the Declaration is in Philadelphia.July 9 — Washington orders that the Declaration of Independence be readbefore the American army in New York — from his personal copy of the“Dunlap Broadside.” July 19 — Congress orders the Declaration of Independence engrossed(officially inscribed) and signed by members. August 2 — Delegates begin to sign engrossed copy of the Declaration ofIndependence. A large British reinforcement arrives at New York after beingrepelled at Charleston, S.C. 1777 January 18 — Congress, now sitting in Baltimore, Maryland, orders thatsigned copies of the Declaration of Independence printed by Mary KatherineGoddard of Baltimore be sent to the states. Drafting the Documents Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphiabehind a veil of Congressionally imposed secrecy in June 1776 for a countrywracked by military and political uncertainties. In anticipation of a votefor independence, the Continental Congress on June 11 appointed ThomasJefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R.Livingston as a committee to draft a declaration of independence. Thecommittee then delegated Thomas Jefferson to undertake the task. Jeffersonworked diligently in private for days to compose a document. Proof of thearduous nature of the work can be seen in the fragment of the first knowncomposition draft of the declaration, which is on public display here forthe first time. Jefferson then made a clean or “fair” copy of the compositiondeclaration, which became the foundation of the document, labeled byJefferson as the “original Rough draught.” Revised first by Adams, then by
Franklin, and then by the full committee, a total of forty-sevenalterations including the insertion of three complete paragraphs was madeon the text before it was presented to Congress on June 28. After votingfor independence on July 2, the Congress then continued to refine thedocument, making thirty-nine additional revisions to the committee draftbefore its final adoption on the morning of July 4. The “original Roughdraught” embodies the multiplicity of corrections, additions and deletionsthat were made at each step. Although most of the alterations are inJefferson’s handwriting (Jefferson later indicated the changes he believedto have been made by Adams and Franklin), quite naturally he opposed manyof the changes made to his document. Congress then ordered the Declaration of Independence printed and late onJuly 4, John Dunlap, a Philadelphia printer, produced the first printedtext of the Declaration of Independence, now known as the “DunlapBroadside.” The next day John Hancock, the president of the ContinentalCongress, began dispatching copies of the Declaration to America’spolitical and military leaders. On July 9, George Washington ordered thathis personal copy of the “Dunlap Broadside,” sent to him by John Hancock onJuly 6, be read to the assembled American army at New York. In 1783 at thewar’s end, General Washington brought his copy of the broadside home toMount Vernon. This remarkable document, which has come down to us onlypartially intact, is accompanied in this exhibit by a complete “DunlapBroadside” — one of only twenty-four known to exist. On July 19, Congress ordered the production of an engrossed (officiallyinscribed) copy of the Declaration of Independence, which attending membersof the Continental Congress, including some who had not voted for itsadoption, began to sign on August 2, 1776. This document is on permanentdisplay at the National Archives. On July 4, 1995, more than two centuries after its composition, theDeclaration of Independence, just as Jefferson predicted on its fiftiethanniversary in his letter to Roger C. Weightman, towers aloft as “thesignal of arousing men to burst the chains…to assume the blessings andsecurity of self-government” and to restore “the free right to theunbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion.”Declaration texthen in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people todissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and toassume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station towhich the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respectto the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causeswhich 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 tosecure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving theirjust powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form ofGovernment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Peopleto alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying itsfoundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as tothem shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence,indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not bechanged for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hathshewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferablethan to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they areaccustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing
invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absoluteDespotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off suchGovernment, and to provide new Guards for their future security. –Such hasbeen the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now thenecessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems ofGovernment. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a historyof repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object theestablishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, letFacts be submitted to a candid world.He has refuted his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for thepublic good.He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressingimportance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should beobtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend tothem.He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districtsof people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representationin the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrantsonly.He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others tobe elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, havereturned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining inthe mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, andconvulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for thatpurpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing topass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising theconditions of new Appropriations of Lands.He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent toLaws 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 amultitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass ourpeople and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times ofpeace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to theCivil Power.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to ourconstitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to theirActs of pretended Legislation:For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders whichthey 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 benefit 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 Boundariesso as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducingthe same absolute rule into these Colonies For taking away our Charters,abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms ofour Governments:For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested withpower to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicatedGovernment here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging Waragainst us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts burnt our towns, anddestroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries tocompleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the mostbarbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas tobear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of theirfriends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured tobring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savageswhose 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 themost humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only byrepeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every actwhich 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 havewarned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend anunwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of thecircumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed totheir native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the tiesof our common kindred. to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitablyinterrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf tothe voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce inthe necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we holdthe rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, inGeneral Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the worldfor the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority ofthe 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 thatall political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, isand 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 IndependentStates may of right do. –And for the support of this Declaration, with afirm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge toeach other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.–John HancockNew Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew ThorntonMassachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge GerryRhode Island:Stephen Hopkins, William ElleryConnecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver WolcottNew York:William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis MorrisNew Jersey:Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, AbrahamClark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, GeorgeClymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George RossDelaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKeanMaryland:
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 BraxtonNorth Carolina:William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John PennSouth Carolina:Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton[pic] The declaration of Independence (USA)