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Some Chose to Remain British Subjects

The Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence
Vol. 43, pp. 150-155 of The Harvard Classics

(Independence Day.)
Some Americans preferred to be loyal to England and did not want independent government. Their hesitation is better understood when the finality of the Declaration is realized.


(1776)

[In the third session of the second continental congress, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed, and John Adams of Massachusetts seconded, a resolution declaring the United Colonies free and independent states; and Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingstone were appointed a committee to draw up a declaration of independence. This famous document, composed almost entirely by Jefferson, was adopted unanimously on July 4, 1776.]


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 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 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 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 of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration 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 legislature.


  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 Legislature, 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 ruler of a free People.


  Nor have We been wanting in attention 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 Honor.


John Hancock.

New Hamsphire

    Josiah Bartlett
    Wm. Whipple
    Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts Bay

    Saml. Adams
    John Adams
    Elbridge Gerry
    Robt. Treat Paine

Rhode Island

    Step. Hopkins
    William Ellery

Connecticut

    Roger Sherman
    Sam’el Huntington
    Wm. Williams
    Oliver Wolcott

New York

    Wm. Floyd
    Phil. Livingston
    Frans. Lewis
    Lewis Morris

New Jersey

    Richd. Stockton
    Jno. Witherspoon
    Fras. Hopkinson
    John Hart
    Abra. Clark

Pennsylvania

    Robt. Morris
    Benjamin Rush
    Benja. Franklin
    John Morton
    Geo. Clymer
    Jas. Smith
    Geo. Taylor
    James Wilson
    Geo. Ross

Delaware

    Cæsar Rodney
    Geo. Read
    Tho. M’Kean

Maryland

    Samuel Chase
    Wm. Paca
    Thos. Stone
    Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia

    George Wythe
    Richard Henry Lee
    Th. Jefferson
    Benja. Harrison
    Thos. Nelson, jr.
    Francis Lightfoot Lee
    Carter Braxton

North Carolina

    Wm. Hooper
    Joseph Hewes
    John Penn

South Carolina

    Edward Rutledge
    Thos. Heyward, junr
    Arthur Middleton
    Thomas Lynch, junr

Georgia

    Button Gwinnett
    Lyman Hall
    Geo. Walton




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