The Virginia gazette — Williamsburg, Va., 1776-07-26 00:00:00, page 1

JULY 26, 1776.
IN COUNCIL, July 20, 1776.
Ordered, THAT the printers publish in
their respective Gazettes the
DECLARATION of INDEPENDENCE
made by the Honourable the Continental Con
gress, and that the sheriff of each county
in this commonweaith proclaim the same at
the door of his courthouse the first court day
after he shall have received the same.
ARCHIBALD BLAIR, Cl. Con.
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 as
sume, 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 which impel them to the sepa
ration.
We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal; that they
are endowed, by their Creator, with cer
tain unalienable rights; that among these
are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi
ness; that, to secure these rights, govern
ments 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 go
vernment, 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 go
vernments 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, pur
suing invariably the same object, evin
ces a design to reduce them under absolute
despotism, it is their right, it is their duty,
to throw off such government, and to pro
vide new guards for their future security.
Such has been the patient sufferance of
these colonies, and such is now the neces
sity which constrains them to alter their
former systems of government. The his
tory of the present king of Great Britain
is a history of repeated injuries and usur
pations, 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 pub
lick good.
He has forbidden his governours to pass
laws of immediate and pressing impor-
In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
A DECLARATION by the represen
tatives of the UNITED STATES
of AMERICA, in GENERAL
CONGRESS assembled.
tance, unless suspended in their operation
till his assent should be obtained; and,
when so suspended, he has utterly neglect
ed to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for
the accommodation of large districts of
people, unless those people would relin
quish 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 pub
lick records, for the sole purpose of fa
tiguing them into compliance with his
measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses
repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firm
ness, 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 mean time ex
posed to all the dangers of invasion from
without and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the po
pulation of these states, for that purpose
obstructing the laws for naturalization of
foreigners, refusing to pass others to en
courage their migrations hither, and rais
ing 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 sala
ries.
He has erected a multitude of new offi
ces, and sent hither swarms of officers to
harrass our people, and eat out their sub
stance.
He has kept among us, in times of
peace, standing armies, without the con
sent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the military
independent of, and superiour to, the civil
power.
He has combined with others to subject
us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitu
tion, 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, esta
blishing therein an arbitrary government,
and enlarging its boundaries, so as to ren-
der it at once an example and fit instrument
for introducing the same absolute rule into
these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolish
ing our most valuable laws, and altering
fundamentally the forms of our govern
ments:
For suspending our own legislatures,
and declaring themselves invested with
power to legislate for us in all cases what
soever.
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 pcople.
He is, at this time, transporting large
armies of foreign mercenaries to complete
the works of death, desolation, and tyran
ny, already begun with circumstances of
cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled
in the most barbarous ages, and total
ly 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 insurrections
amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring
on the inhabitants of our frontiers the mer
ciless 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 in
jury. 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 warn
ed them, from time to time, of attempts
by their legislature to extend an unwar
rantable 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 connexions and
correspondence. They too have been
deaf to the voice of justice and consangui
nity. 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 AME
RICA, in GENERAL CONGRESS as
sembled, appealing to the Supreme judge
of the world for the rectitude of our in
tentions, do, in the name and by the
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 INDEPEN
DENT STATES; that they are absolved
NUMBER -8,