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 and 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 endeavored 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 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 attention to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts made 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 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 the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these United Colonies are, and of good 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.
Signed by order and in behalf of the Congress.
JOHN HANCOCK, President.
Attested, Charles Thompson, Secretary.
| NEW HAMPSHIRE. | PENNSYLVANIA. |
| Josiah Bartlett, | Robert Morris, |
| William Whipple, | Benjamin Rush, |
| Matthew Thornton. | Benjamin Franklin, |
| George Clymer, | |
| MASSACHUSETTS BAY. | John Morton, |
| Samuel Adams, | James Smith, |
| John Adams, | George Taylor, |
| Robert Treat Paine, | James Wilson, |
| Eldridge Gerry. | George Ross. |
| RHODE ISLAND, ETC. | DELAWARE. |
| Stephen Hopkins, | Cæsar Rodney, |
| William Ellery. | George Read, |
| Thomas M'Kean. | |
| CONNECTICUT. | MARYLAND. |
| Roger Sherman, | Samuel Chase, |
| Samuel Huntington, | William Paca, |
| William Williams, | Thomas Stone, |
| Oliver Wolcott. | Charles Carroll, of Carrollton. |
| NEW YORK. | VIRGINIA. |
| William Floyd, | George Wythe, |
| Philip Livingston, | Richard Henry Lee, |
| Francis Lewis, | Thomas Jefferson, |
| Lewis Morris. | Benjamin Harrison, |
| Thomas Nelson, jr., | |
| NEW JERSEY. | Francis Lightfoot Lee, |
| Richard Stockton, | Carter Braxton. |
| John Witherspoon, | Thomas Heyward, jr., |
| Francis Hopkinson, | Thomas Lynch, jr., |
| John Hart, | Arthur Middleton. |
| Abraham Clark. | GEORGIA. |
| NORTH CAROLINA. | Button Gwinnett, |
| William Hooper, | Lyman Hall, |
| Joseph Hewes, | George Walton. |
| John Penn. | |
| SOUTH CAROLINA. | |
| Edward Rutledge, |
CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES.
We,
