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 offenses:
For abolishing the free System 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 into 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 compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizen 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 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 Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. 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.
「私たちは、圧政のあるたびに自由を懇願してきました。しかし、専制的な君主に、我々自由の人々の声は無視されました。」
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 usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connection 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 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 between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, 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.
「ここに、アメリカ合衆国の独立を、全世界に向けて宣言します。」
Connecticut: Samuel Huntington, Roger Sherman, William Williams, Oliver
Wolcott
Delaware: Thomas McKean, George Read, Caesar Rodney
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
Maryland: Charles Carroll, Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone
Massachusetts: John Adams, Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gerry, John Hancock,
Robert Treat Paine
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, Matthew Thornton, William Whipple
New Jersey: Abraham Clark, John Hart, Francis Hopkinson, Richard Stockton,
John Witherspoon
New York: William Floyd, Francis Lewis, Philip Livingston, Lewis Morris
North Carolina: Joseph Hewes, William Hooper, John Penn
Pennsylvania: George Clymer, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, John Morton,
George Ross, Benjamin Rush, Jason Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson
Rhode Island: William Ellery, Stephen Hopkins
South Carolina: Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton,
Edward Rutledge
Virginia: Carter Braxton, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Jefferson, Francis
Lightfoot Lee, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Nelson, Jr., George Wythe