[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 4828 Engrossed in Senate (ES)]
<DOC>
119th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 4828
_______________________________________________________________________
AN ACT
To reaffirm the Declaration of Independence as an Organic Law of the
United States.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Declaration of Independence
Reaffirmation Act of 2026''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the
Declaration of Independence.
(2) The Declaration of Independence announced that the
United States of America were free and independent States.
(3) The Declaration of Independence declares that all men
are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
certain unalienable rights, and that governments derive their
just powers from the consent of the governed.
(4) The Declaration of Independence is recognized among the
Organic Laws of the United States.
(5) The Northwest Ordinance was adopted by the Congress of
the Confederation in 1787, and was thereafter reenacted by the
First Congress in 1789, so that it could continue to have full
effect under the Constitution of the United States.
(6) Congress has authority to recognize, reaffirm, and
carry forward the foundational laws and principles of the
American political order.
(7) The 250th anniversary of American independence calls
upon Congress to reaffirm the Declaration of Independence as
the charter of American sovereignty, natural rights, equal
citizenship, and government by consent.
(8) The Constitution of the United States gives lawful form
and enduring structure to the principles of republican self-
government announced in the Declaration of Independence.
(9) The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of
the United States together establish a political order in which
the people are sovereign and public officers are their
servants.
(10) The Declaration of Independence presupposes that
Americans are ``one people'' with the right to govern
themselves as a distinct political community, to preserve their
national independence, and to secure the rights and liberties
of their own citizens.
SEC. 3. REAFFIRMATION OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
Congress reaffirms and re-adopts the Declaration of Independence as
an Organic Law of the United States and as the enduring charter of
American independence, national sovereignty, natural rights, equal
citizenship, and government by consent.
SEC. 4. TEXT OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
In commemoration of the 250th anniversary of American independence,
Congress sets forth the text of the Declaration of Independence as
follows:
``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 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 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
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:
``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 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.
``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 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 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 denounces 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 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.''.
Passed the Senate June 18, 2026.
Attest:
Secretary.
119th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 4828
_______________________________________________________________________
AN ACT
To reaffirm the Declaration of Independence as an Organic Law of the
United States.