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美国《独立宣言》中英文对照
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 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 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;
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
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