The Declarations of Jefferson and of the Congress
(Taken from Jefferson's Notes of Proceedings Papers, Vol
1: 315‑19)
I will state the form of the declaration as originally
reported. The parts struck out by Congress shall be distinguished by a black line
drawn under them; & those inserted by them shall be placed in the margin or
in a concurrent column:
A Declaration by the representatives of the United States
of America, in [General] Congress assembled
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 & equal
station to which the laws of nature and of natures 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 (*[1])
[inherent and] inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty
& 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, & to
institute new government, laying it's foundation on such principles, &
organising it's powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their safety & happiness. Prudence indeed will dictate that
governments long established should not be changed for light & 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 & usurpations [begun at a distinguished period and]
pursuing invariably the object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
despotism it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such government,
& to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the
patient sufferance of these colonies; & such is now the necessity which
constrains them to (*[2])
[expunge] their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain is a history of
(*[3])
[unremitting] injuries & usurpations, [among which appears no
solitary fact to contradict the uniform
tenor of the rest but all have] (*[4])
in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.
To prove this let facts be submitted to a candid world [for the truth of
which we pledge a faith yet unsullied falsehood.]
He has refused his assent to
laws the most wholsome & necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors
to pass laws of immediate do pressing importance, unless suspended in their
operation till his assent should be obtained; & 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, & 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 [& continually]
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 & 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, & raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has (*[5])
[suffered] the administration of justice [totally to cease in some of
these states] (*[6]) refusing
his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made [our] judges
dependant on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, & the amount
& paiment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of
new offices [by a self assumed power] and sent hither swarms of new
officers to harrass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us in times of
peace standing armies [and ships of war] without the consent of our
legislatures.
He has affected to render the
military Independent of, & superior to the civil power.
He has combined
with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutions &
unacknoleged 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 (*[7])
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
neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and
enlarging it's boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit
instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these (*[8])
[states]; for taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable
laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments; for suspending
our own legislatures, & declaring themselves invested with power to
legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated government here
(*[9])
[withdrawing his governors. and declaring us out of his allegiance &
protection.]
He has plundered our seas,
ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, & destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting
large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation
& tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy (*[10])
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 & brethren, or to fall themselves
by their hands.
He has (*[11])
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, & conditions [of existence.]
[He has incited treasonable
insurrections of our fellowcitizens, with the allurements of forfeiture &
confiscation of our property.
He
has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred
rights to of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never
offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere
or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare,
a opprobrium of infidel powers, is
the warfare of the Christian king of
Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold,. he has prostituted his negative
for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this
execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of
distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms
among us and to purchase that liberty of which he has
derived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus
paying off former crimes committed against the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit
against the lives of another.]
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 injuries. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act
which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a (*[12])
people [who mean to be free. Future ages will scarcely believe that the
hardiness of one man adventured, within the short compass of twelve years only,
to lay a foundation so broad & so undisguised for tyranny over a people
fostered & fixed in principles of freedom.]
Nor have we been wanting in
attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of
attempts by their legislature to extend (*[13])
[a] jurisdiction over (*[14])
[these our states.] We have
reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration & settlement here, [no
one of which could warrant so strange a pretension: that these were effected
at the expence of our own blood &_ treasure, unassisted by the wealth or
the strength of Great Britain: that in constituting indeed our several forms of
government, we had adopted one common king, thereby laying a foundation for
perpetual league & amity with them: but that submission to their parliament
was no part of our constitution, nor ever in idea, if history may be credited:
and,] we (*[15]) appealed
to their native justice and magnanimity (*[16])
[as well as to] the ties of our common kindred to disavow these
usurpations which (*[17])
[were likely to] interrupt our connection and correspondence. They too
have been deaf to the voice of justice & of consanguinity, [and when
occasions have been given them, by the regular course of their laws, of removing
from their councils the disturbers of our harmony, they have, by their free
election, re‑established them in power. At this very time too they are
permitting their chief magistrate to send over not only souldiers of our common
blood, but Scotch & foreign mercenaries to invade & destroy us. These
facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us
to renounce for ever these unfeeling brethren. We must endeavor to forget our
former love for them, and to hold them as we hold the rest of mankind enemies
in war, in peace friends. We might have been a free and a great people
together; but a communication of grandeur & of freedom it seems is below
their dignity. Be it so, since they will have it. The road to happiness &
to glory is open to us too. We will tread it apart from them, and] (*[18])
acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our [eternal] separation (*[19]).
We therefore the representatives of the United states of
America in General Congress assembled do in the name, & by the authority of
the good people of these [states reject & renounce all allegiance &
subjection to the kings of Great Britain & all others who may hereafter
claim by, through or under them: we utterly dissolve all political connection
which may heretofore have subsisted between us & the people or parliament
of Great Britain: & finally we do assert & declare these colonies to be
free & independant states,] & that as free & independant
states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances,
establish commerce, & to do all other acts & things which independant
states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration we mutually
pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes & our sacred honour. (*[20]).
[1] certain
[2] alter
[3] repeated
[4] all having
[5] obstructed
[6] by
[7] in many cases
[8] colonies
[9] by declaring us out of his
protection &waging war against us
[10] scarcely paralleled in the
most barbarious ages & totally
[11] excited domestic
insurrections amongst us & has
[12] free
[13] an unwarrantable
[14] us
[15] have
[16] and we have conjured them by
[17] would inevitably
[18] we must therefore
[19] and hold them as we hold the
rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends
[20] [Replace the last paragraph
with the following]:
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, & by the
authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish & declare
that these United colonies are & of right ought to he free &
independant states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British
crown, and that all political connection between them & the state of Great
Britain is, & ought to be, totally dissolved; & that as free &
independant states they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract
alliances, establish commerce & to do all other acts & things which
independant 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 & our sacred honour.