600 



THE STANDARD DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



ernment, and to provide new Guards for their future 'and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our 

 security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose knoun 

 Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all 

 them to alter their former Systems of ( Government, ages, sexes and conditions. 



The history of the present King of Great Britain is a In every stage of these Oppressions We have Peti- 

 history of repeated injuries ami usurpations, all having tioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our 

 in direct object the establishment of an absolute Ty- repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated 

 ranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by 

 submitted to a candid world. every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the 



He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most whole- ruler of a free people, 

 some and necessary for the public good. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our 



He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of British brethren. We have warned them from time to 



time of attempts by their legislature to extend an un- 

 warrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded 

 them of the circumstances of our emigration ami settle- 



immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended 

 nis Assent should be obtained; 



in their operation till 



and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to 



attend to them. 



He has refused to pass other I>aws for the accommo- 

 dation 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 dissolu- 

 tions, tor cause others to be elected ; whereby the Legis- 

 lative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned 

 to the People at large for their exercise; the State 

 remaining in the meantime exposed t9 all the dangers 

 of invasion from without, and convulsions within. 



He has endeavored 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 pay- 

 ment 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 legislature. 



He has affected to render the Military independent of 

 and superior to the Civil power. 



He has C9mbined with others to subject us to a juris- 

 diction 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 punish- 

 ment 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 pre- 

 tended offenses: 



For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a 

 neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary 

 government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to ren- 

 der it at once an example and fit instrument for intro- 

 ducing 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 bar- 

 barous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civil- 

 ized 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, 



ment 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 usurpa- 

 tions, which would inevitably interrupt our connections 

 and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the 

 voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, there- 

 fore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our 

 Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of man- 

 kind, Knemies in War, in Peace Friends. 



\VK. THKUKFORK. the HI.I-HKSKNTATIVEB of the 

 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, IN GENERAL CONCUISS, 

 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 Com- 

 merce, and to do all other Acts and Things which INDE- 

 PENDENT 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. 



(The foregoing declaration was, by order of Congress, 

 engrossed, and signed by the following members:) 



JOHN HANCOCK. 



New Hampshire. 



JOSIAH BARTLETT, MATTHEW THORNTON. 



WM. WHIPPLE, 



Massachusetts Bay. 



SAML. ADAMS, ROBT. TREAT PAINE, 



JOHN ADAMS, ELBRIDGE GERRY. 



Rhode Island, etc. 

 STEP. HOPKINS, WILLIAM ELLERY. 



Connecticut. 



ROGER SHERMAN, WM. WILLIAMS, 



SAM'EL HUNTINGTON, OLIVER WOLCOTT. 



New York. 



WM. FLOYD, FRANS. LEWIS, 



PHIL. LIVINGSTON, LEWIS MORRIS. 



New Jersey. 

 RICHD. STOCKTON, JOHN HART, 



JNO. WlTHERSPOON, ABRA. CLARK. 



FRAS. HOPKINSON, 



Pennsylvania. 



ROBT. MORRIS, 

 BENJAMIN RUSH, 

 BENJA. FRANKLIN, 

 JOHN MORTON, 

 GEO. CLYMER, 



CESAB RODNEY, 

 GEO. READ, 



SAMUEL CHASE, 

 WM. PACA, 



JAS. SMITH, 

 GEO. TAYLOR, 

 JAMES WILSON, 

 GEO. Ross. 



Delaware. 



THO. M'KEAN. 



Maryland. 



THOS. STONE, 

 CHARLES CARROLL of 



Carrollton. 

 Virginia. 



THOS. NELSON, jr., 

 FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE, 

 CARTER BRAXTON. 



GEORGE WYTHE, 

 RICHARD HENRY LEE, 

 TH. JEFFERSON, 

 BENJA. HARRISON, 



North Carolina. 



WM. HOOPER, JOHN PENN. 



JOSEPH HEWES, 



South Carolina. 



EDWARD RUTLEDGE, THOMAS LYNCH, jr., 



THOS. HEYWARD, jr., ARTHUR MIDDLETON. 



Georgia. 



BUTTON GWINNETT, GEO. WALTON. 



LYMAN HALL. 



