Text in red strikethrough was deleted deleted from Jefferson's draft.
Text in underlined blue was added in committee and general assembly.
A In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the Representativesthirteen united States of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress assembled.America,
Rough Draft of the Declaration When in the courseCourse of human events, it becomes necessary for aone people to advance from that subordination indissolve the political bands which they have hitherto remained, &connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal & independant station to which the lawsLaws of nature &Nature and of nature’s godNature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the changeseparation.
We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable;self-evident, that all men are created equal & independant, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness; thatHappiness.—That to secure these ends, governmentsrights, Governments are instituted among menMen, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, —That whenever any formForm of government shall becomeGovernment becomes destructive rightRight of the peoplePeople to alter or to abolish it, &and to institute new governmentGovernment, laying it’sits foundation on such principles & organising it’sand organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness. prudenceSafety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governmentsGovernments 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. butBut when a long train of abuses &and usurpations, begun at a distinguished period, & pursuing invariably the same object,Object evinces a design to subjectreduce them to arbitrary powerunder absolute Despotism, it government &Government, and to provide new guardsGuards for their future security. such.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; &Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to expungealter their former systemsSystems of government. theGovernment. The history of histhe present majesty,King of Great Britain is a history of unremittingrepeated injuries and usurpations, among which no one fact stands single or solitary to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest, all of which havehaving in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyrannyTyranny over these states. toStates. To prove this, let factsFacts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.
heHe has refused his assentAssent to lawsLaws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
heHe has forbidden his governorsGovernors to pass lawsLaws of immediate &and pressing iassentAssent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected utterly to attend to them.
heHe has refused to pass other lawsLaws for the accomodationaccommodationrepresentationRepresentation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants alone:only.
heHe has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant
He has dissolved Representative housesHouses repeatedly & continually, for opposing with
heHe has refused for a long space of time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be
elected,; whereby the legislativeLegislative powers, incapable of annihilationAnnihilation, have returned to the peoplePeople at large for their exercise,; the stateState remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, &and convulsions within:.
heHe has endeavoredendeavoured to prevent the population of these statesStates;lawsLaws for naturalizationNaturalization of foreignersForeigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither; &, and raising the conditions of new appropriationsAppropriations of lands:Lands.
heHe has sufferedobstructed the administrationAdministration of justice totally to cease in
some of these colonies,Justice, by refusing his assentAssent to lawsLaws for establishing judiciaryJudiciary powers:.
heHe has made our judges dependantJudges dependent on his willWill alone, for the
heHe has erected a multitude of new offices by a self-assumed power, &New Offices,
and sent hither swarms of officersOfficers to harrass our people &, and eat out their substance:.
heHe has kept among us, in times of peace standing armies & ships of war:, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
heHe has affected to render the military, independantMilitary independent of &and superior to the civilCivil power:.
heHe has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitutionsconstitution, and unacknolegedunacknowledged by our laws; giving his assentAssent to their Acts of pretended acts of legislation, for quarteringLegislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;:
forFor protecting them, by a mock-trial Trial, from punishment for any murders Murders which they should commit on the inhabitantsInhabitants of these states;States:
forFor cutting off our tradeTrade with all parts of the world;:
forFor imposing taxesTaxes on us without our consent;Consent:
forFor depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trialTrial by jury;Jury:
forFor transporting us beyond seasSeas to be tried for pretended offences: for
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, &Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the formsForms of our governments;Governments:
forFor suspending our own legislatures &Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever:.
heHe has abdicated governmentGovernment here, withdrawing his governors, & by declaring us out of his allegiance & protection:Protection and waging War against us.
heHe has plundered our seas, ravaged our coastsCoasts, burnt our towns &, and destroyed the lives of our people:.
heHe is at this time transporting large armiesArmies of foreign merce nariesMercenaries to &and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of crueltyCruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the headHead of a civilized nation:.
he has endeavoredHe 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 endeavoured to bring on the savagesSavages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, & and conditions of existence:.
he has incited treasonable insurrections in our fellow-subjects, with the allurements of forfeiture & confiscation of our property:he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & 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, the 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 deprived them, & murdering the people upon 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.
inIn every stage of these oppressions weOppressions We have petitionedPetitioned for redressRedress in the most humble terms; our: Our repeated petitionsPetitions have been answered only by repeated injury. a princeA Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrantTyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free. future ages will scarce believe that the hardiness of one man, adventured within the short compass of 12 years only, on so many acts of tyranny without a mask, over a people fostered & fixed in principles of libertyfree people.
Nor have weWe been wanting in attentions to our BritishBrittish brethren. weWe have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend aan unwarrantable jurisdiction over these our states. weus. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration &and 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 . We have appealed to their native justice &and magnanimity, as well as toand we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which were likely to, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence & connection. they . They too have been deaf to the voice of justice &and of consanguinity, & 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 soldiers of our common blood, but Scotch & foreign mercenaries to invade & deluge us in blood. these facts have given the last stab to agonizing affection, and manly spirit bids us to renounce for ever these unfeeling brethren. we. We must endeavor to forget, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our former love for themSeparation, and to hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends. we might have been a free & 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 glory & happiness is open to us too; we will climb it in a separate state, and acquiesce in the necessity which pronounces our everlasting Adieu!Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the representativesRepresentatives of the Unitedunited States of America, in General Congress assembled, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name &Name, and by authorityAuthoritypeople of these states, reject and renounce all allegiance & subjection to the kings of Great Britain & all others who may hereafter claim by, through, or under them; we utterly dissolve & break off 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 which may have heretofore subsisted between us &them and the people or parliamentState of Great Britain; and finally we do assert, is and declare these a coloniesought to be free and independant states,totally dissolved; and that as free & independant statesFree and Independent States, they shall hereafter have powerfull Power to levy warWar, conclude peacePeace, contract alliancesAlliances, establish commerce, &Commerce, and to do all other actsActs and thingsThings which independent statesIndependent States may of right do. And for the support of this declarationDeclaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our livesLives, our fortunes, &Fortunes and our sacred honourHonor.
Source:
Rough Draft: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Vol. 1, 1760-1776. Ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp. 243–247.
Final Draft: The National Archives transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence. https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript.