{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_1/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_1","id":"gutenberg_1","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1","summary":null,"tags":["American Revolutionary War","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - American","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Politics","United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Sources","United States Law","United States. Declaration of Independence"],"text":"The United States Declaration of Independence was the first E-text\nreleased by Project Gutenberg, early in 1971. The title was stored\nin an emailed instruction set which required a tape or diskpack be\nhand mounted for retrieval.  The disk pack was the size of a large\ncake in a cake carrier, cost $1500,  and contained 5 megabytes, of\nwhich this file took 1-2%.  Two tape backups were kept plus one on\npaper tape.  The 10,000 files we hope to have online by the end of\n2001 should take about 1-2% of a comparably priced drive in 2001.\n\nThis file was never copyrighted, Sharewared, etc., and is thus for\nall to use and copy in any manner they choose. Please feel free to\nmake your own edition using this as a base.\n\nIn my research for creating this transcription of our first Etext,\nI have come across enough discrepancies [even within that official\ndocumentation provided by the United States] to conclude that even\n\u201cfacsimiles\u201d of the Declaration of Independence are nary identical\nto the original, nor of other \u201cfacsimiles.\u201d There is a plethora of\nvariations in capitalizations, punctuation, and where names appear\non the documents [which names I have left out].\n\nThe resulting document has several misspellings removed from those\nparchment \u201cfacsimiles\u201d I used back in 1971, and which I should not\nbe able to easily find at this time, including \u201cBrittain.\u201d\n\n[JT, Apr 2005: \u201cBrittish\u201d is spelled as in the original.]\n\n[RO, Aug 2025: Dr. Hart\u2019s original fully-justified columns of text\nin the plain text version have been restored for the introduction.\nMinor text alterations were made to do so.]\n\n\n***\n\nTranscribers\u2019 Notes\n\n   NOTE: This file contains the original contents of the\n   very first eBook in the Project Gutenberg collection,\n   the Declaration of Independence. This file previously\n   contained a compilation of etexts from #2 to #9. Also\n   it contained a duplicate of the Declaration - as part\n   of preserving the history of the contents which isn\u2019t\n   necessary any longer. The historical variations of #1\n   are included in the \u201cold\u201d subdirectory accessed under\n   the \u201cMore Files\u201d listing in the landing page for this\n   file. No edits or changes have been made to them.\n\n   All of the original Project Gutenberg Etexts from the\n   1970\u2019s were produced in ALL CAPS, no lower case.  The\n   computers we used then didn\u2019t have lower case at all.\n\n***\n\n\n\n\nTHE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n\n\nIN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776\n\nThe unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America\n\nWhen in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people\nto dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,\nand to assume, among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal\nstation to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature\u2019s God entitle them,\na decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should\ndeclare the causes which impel them to the separation.\n\nWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created\nequal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable\nRights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of\nHappiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted\namong Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,\nThat whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these\nends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to\ninstitute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles\nand organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most\nlikely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will\ndictate that Governments long established should not be changed for\nlight and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown,\nthat mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,\nthan to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are\naccustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing\ninvariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under\nabsolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off\nsuch Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.\n--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is\nnow the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems\nof Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a\nhistory of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct\nobject the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To\nprove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.\n\nHe has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for\nthe public good.\n\nHe has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing\nimportance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should\nbe obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend\nto them.\n\nHe has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large\ndistricts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right\nof Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and\nformidable to tyrants only.\n\nHe has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,\nuncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records,\nfor the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his\nmeasures.\n\nHe has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with\nmanly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.\n\nHe has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause\nothers to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of\nAnnihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise;\nthe State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of\ninvasion from without, and convulsions within.\n\nHe has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that\npurpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing\nto pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the\nconditions of new Appropriations of Lands.\n\nHe has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent\nto Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.\n\nHe has made judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their\noffices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.\n\nHe has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of\nOfficers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.\n\nHe has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the\nConsent of our legislatures.\n\nHe has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to\nthe Civil Power.\n\nHe has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to\nour constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to\ntheir Acts of pretended legislation:\n\nFor quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:\n\nFor protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders\nwhich they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:\n\nFor cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:\n\nFor imposing taxes on us without our Consent:\n\nFor depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:\n\nFor transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:\n\nFor abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring\nProvince, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging\nits Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument\nfor introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:\n\nFor taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and\naltering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:\n\nFor suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested\nwith Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.\n\nHe has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection\nand waging War against us.\n\nHe has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and\ndestroyed the lives of our people.\n\nHe is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries\nto compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun\nwith circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most\nbarbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.\n\nHe has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas\nto bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their\nfriends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.\n\nHe has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured\nto bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian\nSavages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction\nof all ages, sexes and conditions.\n\nIn every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in\nthe most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only\nby repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every\nact which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free\nPeople.\n\nNor have We been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have\nwarned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to\nextend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them\nof the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have\nappealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured\nthem by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations,\nwhich would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.\nThey too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.\nWe must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our\nSeparation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in\nWar, in Peace Friends.\n\nWe, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America,\nin General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the\nworld for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the\nAuthority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and\ndeclare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free\nand Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to\nthe British Crown, and that all political connection between them and\nthe State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and\nthat as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War,\nconclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all\nother Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for\nthe support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection\nof Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our\nFortunes and our sacred Honor.","title":"The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":1741}