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美国《独立宣言》
（英文稿）
The Declaration of
Independence
Action of
Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the
thirteen United States of America
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.
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.
Prudence,
indeed,
will
dictate
that
Governments
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,
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 a History of repeated
Injuries and Usurpations, 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 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 the Annihilation, have returned to
the People
1
at large for their exercise; the State
remaining in the mean time exposed to all the
Dangers of
Invasion from without, and
the Convulsions within.
HE has
endeavoured to prevent the Population of these
States; for that Purpose obstructing
the
Laws
for
Naturalization
of
Foreigners;
refusing
to
pass
others
to
encourage
their
Migrations hither, and
raising 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
Salaries.
HE has erected a Multitude of
new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to
harrass
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 Offences:
FOR
abolishing
the free
System
of
English
Laws
in a
neighbouring
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 Rules 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 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
Insurrections
amongst
us,
and
has
endeavoured
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.
2