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 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 protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:.
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:. 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 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. 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.
Today the population of the U. The oldest signer of the Declaration was Benjamin Franklin, who was born in and was therefore already 70 at the time of the Declaration. Franklin went on to help negotiate the Treaty of Alliance with France in and the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War in The only signer of the Declaration of Independence to survive beyond the 50th anniversary of the signing was Charles Carroll of Maryland.
Carroll died in when he was 95 years old. The copy of the Declaration of Independence that is housed at the National Archives is not the draft that was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, Instead it is a formal copy that the Continental Congress hired someone to make for them after the text was approved. This formal copy was probably made by Timothy Matlack, an assistant to the Secretary of Congress.
This copy was signed on August 2, The United States didn't exist until after the Declaration was signed! However, all but eight of the signers were born in colonies that would become the United States. The first public reading of the Declaration took place on July 8, , in Philadelphia.
A fictional story written in the s suggested that the bell now known as the Liberty Bell was rung that day to bring the people together. However, historians now doubt that this happened. Seven other members of the July 4 meeting never signed the document, Friedenwald said.
Toggle navigation. Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up.
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