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美国《独立宣言》英文版
The Declaration of Independence
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4,
1776 THE UNANIMOUS
DECLARATION OF THE
THIRTEEN UNITED
STATES OF AMERAICA
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 Nature and Nature’s 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 certain unalienable rights, that they are among these are life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among them, deriving
their just power 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 shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than
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t 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 usurpations, all having in direct object 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 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
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
invasion on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolution, 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
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and convulsion within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the
laws of naturalizing of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and
raising the condition of new appropriations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent of laws for establishing
judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their office, and the amount
and payment of their salary.
He has erected a multitude of new officers, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our
people, and eat out our substances.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of 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 murder 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 offenses;
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For abolishing the free systems of English laws in a neighboring 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 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 complete the works of
death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely
parallel in the most barbarous ages, and totally 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 and brethren, or to fall themselves by their
hands.
He has excited domestic insurrection 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 petition have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus
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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 attention 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 usurpation, 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 States Colonies and Independent States; that they are absolved by from all allegiance
to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State, 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.