Declare the Causes: The Argument of the Declaration of Independence
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Worksheet 2. The Declaration of Independence in Six Parts
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The Unanimous Declaration of the
Thirteen United States of America
In Congress, July 4, 1776
Title and Date
[Part One: Preamble]
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 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 separation.
Why the Declaration is necessary
[Part Two: Statement of Beliefs]
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 among these are Life, Liberty, and the
pursuit of Happiness; that, to secure these
rights, governments 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 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.
What we believe as Americans
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 to 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
Declare the Causes: The Argument of the Declaration of Independence
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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 a history of repeated injuries and
usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute tyranny over
these states.
Key Assertion That Needs to Be Proved: The
Establish of Tyranny
[Part Three: List of Complaints]
To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid
world
Evidence for the Proof: Facts
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 to 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 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, exposed to all the dangers of
invasions from without and convulsions
within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of
these states; for that purpose obstructing the
laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing
to pass others to encourage their migration
hither, and raising the conditions of new
appropriations of lands.
Declare the Causes: The Argument of the Declaration of Independence
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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 salaries.
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and
sent hither swarms of officers to harass our
people and eat out their substance.
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 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.
Declare the Causes: The Argument of the Declaration of Independence
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He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts,
burned 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 paralleled 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 among
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.
[Part Four: Appeals to British Brethren]
Nor have we been wanting in our attentions 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 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.
The Appeals to Our British Brethren Failed
[Part Five: Conclusion]
WE, THEREFORE, the REPRESENTATIVES
of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in
Statement of Independence and its Justification
Declare the Causes: The Argument of the Declaration of Independence
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General Congress assembled, appealing to the
Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of
our intentions, 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 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 do all other
acts and things which independent states may
of right do
[Part Six: The Oath]
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.
The Oath of Support
