Lest we forget:


                  IN CONGRESS, July 4th, 1776
                          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
 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 that 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 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 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 Accommodations of large
 Distrits 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 meantime exposed to 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 of 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 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 our Legislatures.

 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 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 and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled
 in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy of 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 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 the Ruler of a
 free People.

 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 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, President

 Attest.  CHARLES THOMSON, Secretary.