素材：独立宣言 The Declaration of Independence

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The Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies
  
In 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 [George III] 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 Annihilation,
have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining
in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and
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 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 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 rule into these Colonies:
  
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering
fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
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 rule into these Colonies:
  
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering
fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
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.
  
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned
them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantaable
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 denouncces
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 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 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.
  
The signers of the Declaration represented the new states as follows:
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
  
John Hancock, Samual Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
  
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
  
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham
Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer,
James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas
Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
  
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

  
http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html