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<br />For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
<br />For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an
<br />Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument
<br />for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
<br />For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of
<br />our Governments:
<br />For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in
<br />all cases whatsoever.
<br />He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
<br />He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
<br />He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death,
<br />desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the
<br />most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
<br />He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country,
<br />to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
<br />He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our
<br />frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of
<br />all ages, sexes and conditions.
<br />In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have
<br />been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is
<br />unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
<br />Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their
<br />legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and
<br />settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our
<br />common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They
<br />too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which
<br />denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
<br />We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the
<br />Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these
<br />Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent
<br />States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the
<br />State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to
<br />levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent
<br />States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we
<br />mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
<br />
<br />The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
<br />Column 1
<br />
<br />Georgia:
<br /> Button Gwinnett
<br /> Lyman Hall
<br /> George Walton
<br />Column 2
<br />
<br />North Carolina:
<br /> William Hooper
<br /> Joseph Hewes
<br /> John Penn
<br />South Carolina:
<br /> Edward Rutledge
<br /> Thomas Heyward, Jr.
<br /> Thomas Lynch, Jr.
<br /> Arthur Middleton
<br />Column 3
<br />
<br />Massachusetts:
<br />John Hancock
<br />Maryland:
<br />Samuel Chase
<br />
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