A July Fourth Tradition: NPR Reads the Declaration of Independence

Thirty years ago, Morning Edition launched what has become a tradition of Independence Day: familiar voices of the NPR Reading the Declaration of Independence

It is the draft Declaration of Independence adopted by the Continental Congress 242 years ago in Philadelphia. It is read by NPR staff members in the accompanying audio.

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Steve Inskeep

Doby Photography / NPR

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political gangs that connected them to another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal place to which the Laws of Nature and the God of Nature call them, a decent respect to the opinions of humanity requires that they declare the causes which the push to separation.

Rachel Martin

Stephen Voss / NPR

We hold these truths as self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are Life, Freedom and the pursuit of happiness. For these rights to be guaranteed, governments are instituted among men, drawing their just powers from the consent of the governed. –

David Greene

David Gilkey / NPR

That whenever a form of government becomes destructive of these purposes, it is the right of the people to change it or to change it. abolish, and institute new The government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such a form, as for them will seem more likely to affect their safety and happiness.

Noel King

Sandy Honig / NPR

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that long-established governments should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, therefore, all experience has shown that men are more willing to suffer, while evils are suffering, than to correct themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Don Gonyea

Doby Photography / NPR [19659009] But when a long train of abuse and usurpation, invariably pursuing the same Object, testifies to a plan to reduce them under Absolute Despotism, it is their right, their duty , overthrow such a Government and provide new Guards for their future security. –

Deborah Amos

Steve Barrett

Such was the patient suffering of these colonies; and such is now the necessity that compels them to alter their old systems of government

Joe Palca

Doby Photography / NPR

The history of the present king of Britain is a story of repeated injuries. and the usurpations, all aimed directly at the establishment of absolute tyranny over these states. To prove it, let the facts be submitted to a candid world

Audie Cornish

Doby Photography / NPR

He refused his assent to the laws, the most salutary and necessary for the public good. 19659038] He prohibited his governors from passing laws of immediate and urgent importance, unless suspended in their operation until his assent was obtained; and when he is so suspended, he has completely neglected to take care of them.

Shankar Vedantam

Gary Knight / VII

He refused to adopt other laws for hosting large districts, unless people would surrender the right of representation to the Legislature, an inestimable right for them and formidable to tyrants alone.

Lulu Garcia-Navarro

Stephen Voss / NPR

He summoned legislative bodies to unusual, uncomfortable places, and distant from the filing of their public documents, for the sole purpose of to tire them of complying with his measures.

Sylvia Poggioli

Kainaz Amaria / NPR

on several occasions, to firmly oppose his invasions of the rights of the people.

Frank Langfitt

Steve Barrett

He long refused, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; by which the legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, returned to the people in general for their exercise; the state remaining in the meanwhile exposed to all the dangers of the invasion from the outside, and convulsions to the interior.

Cheryl Corley

Steve Barrett / NPR

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; to this end obstruct the laws for the naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations here, and raise the conditions for new Land Credits.

Nina Totenberg

Steve Barrett / NPR

He obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent

He made the judges depend solely on his wishes, the duration of their duties, amount and payment of their salaries

Scott Detrow

Stephen Voss / NPR

He erected a multitude of new offices, and sent swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat their substance.

Michel Martin

Stephen Voss

He kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures.

He assigned to make the army independent and superior to the civil power.

Ayesha Rascoe

Allison Shelley / NPR

He combined the spirit of others subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and not recognized by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of alleged legislation:

Ofeibea Quist-Arcton

Jacques Coughlin

For the gathering of large corps of armed troops among us:

To protect them, by a sham trial, of punishment for all the murders they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

Mary Louise Kelly

Doby Photography / NPR

To cut our trade with all parts of the world: [19659047Forimposingtaxesonuswithoutourconsent:

For having deprived us in many cases of the benefits of jury trial:

Ailsa Chang

Mike Morgan / NPR

To Transport Us Beyond the seas To abolish the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, to establish an arbitrary government and to expand its borders so as to make it both an example and an instrument apt to introduce the same absolute rule in these Colonies:

Linda Wertheimer

Steve Barrett

For having removed our charters, abolished our most precious laws, and fundamentally altered the forms of our governments:

To suspend our own legislatures , and declare

Debbie Elliott

Christy Haynes / NPR

He abdicated the government here, declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our cities and destroyed the lives of our people.

Anthony Kuhn

Wang Zemin / Wang Zemin

He is currently transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries completing the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun by circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely equaled in the most barbarous centuries, and totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation

Gene Demby [19659108] Kainaz Amaria / NPR

He compelled our fellow citizens caught in captivity on the high seas to carry arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brothers, or to fall themselves by their hands. ] Ari Shapiro

Doby Photography / NPR

He has excited domestic insurrections among us, and has been striving to draw upon the inhabitants of our borders, the ruthless Indians, whose rule of thumb known war, is a little misunderstood

At each stage of these Oppressions, we asked for reparation in the most humble terms: Our repeated petitions were only answered by repeated injuries.

Eyder Peralta

[19659008] Kainaz Amaria / NPR

A Prince whose character is so marked by any act that may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the leader of a free people.

We have not missed attention to our Breton brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend unjustifiable jurisdiction over us.

Susan Stamberg

Doby Photography / NPR

We reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we conjured them by the bonds of our common kinship to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our relations and our correspondence.

Scott Horsley

Doby Photography / NPR

They too were deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must therefore acquiesce in the need, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of humanity, Enemies in War, in the Friends of Peace.

Cokie Roberts

Steve Fenn / ABC

We, therefore, Representatives of the United States of America, at the General Congress, Assemblies, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the righteousness of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies solemnly publishes and declares that these United Colonies are Free and Independent States,

David Greene

David Gilkey / NPR

that 39 they are Absolute of all allegiance to the British Crown, and that any political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is and should be totally dissolved

Rachel Martin

Stephen Voss / NPR

and that as free and independent states, they have the full power to take war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish trade, and do all other acts and things that independent states can make.

Steve Inskeep

Doby Photography / NPR

And for the support of this statement, with firm confidence in the protection of Divine Providence, we commit each other to our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Editor's note

Punctuation and spelling correspond to those put online by the National Archives

This story was produced for circulation by Morning Edition producer Barry Gordemer and for the web by digital producer Heidi Glenn.