Max McLean Reads the Declaration of Independence in Full
This episode is a dramatic oral reading of the Declaration of Independence, performed by Max McLean. The content follows the document's original structure: a philosophical preamble, a bill of particulars against the British Crown, and a closing proclamation of sovereignty.
The preamble lays out the Founders' core political philosophy — that all men are created equal, endowed with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. It further establishes that when government becomes destructive of those ends, the people have both the right and the duty to alter or abolish it, though not for "light and transient causes."
The bulk of the reading consists of the Declaration's 27 enumerated grievances against King George III. These range from procedural abuses — refusing assent to laws, dissolving legislatures, obstructing naturalization — to more acute violations including: - Keeping standing armies among colonists without legislative consent - Imposing taxes without representation - Depriving colonists of trial by jury - Hiring foreign mercenaries to wage war on the colonies - Inciting domestic insurrections and frontier conflicts
The Declaration notes that petitions for redress were repeatedly met with "repeated injury," and that appeals to British citizens themselves fell on deaf ears. This exhaustion of peaceful remedies is framed as the moral justification for separation.
The reading closes with the formal declaration that the united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states, absolved of all allegiance to the British Crown — with the signatories pledging their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to that cause.
Actor Max McLean delivers a dramatic reading of the complete U.S. Declaration of Independence. The recording covers the document's foundational philosophy, its lengthy catalogue of grievances against King George III, and its formal proclamation of American independence.
A prince whose character is marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.
Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.
Mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
When a long train of abuses and usurpations evinces a design to reduce the people under absolute despotism, it is their right and duty to throw off such 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.
The King refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
The King forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended until his assent was obtained, and when suspended he utterly neglected to attend to them.
The King refused to pass laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people relinquished the right of representation in the legislature.
The King 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.
The King dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
The King refused for a long time after such dissolutions to cause others to be elected, leaving the state exposed to dangers of invasion from without and convulsions within.
The King endeavored to prevent the population of these states by obstructing the laws of naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass laws to encourage migration, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
The King obstructed the administration of justice by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
The King made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.
The King erected a multitude of new offices and sent swarms of officers to harass the people and eat out their substance.
The King kept standing armies among the colonists in times of peace without the consent of their legislatures.
The King affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.
The King gave assent to acts of pretended legislation including quartering large bodies of armed troops among the colonists and protecting them by mock trial from punishment for murders committed on inhabitants of these states.
The King cut off colonial trade with all parts of the world and imposed taxes without consent.
The King deprived colonists in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury and transported them beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses.
The King abolished the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, established an arbitrary government, and enlarged its boundaries to render it an instrument for introducing absolute rule into the colonies.
The King abdicated government by declaring the colonists out of his protection and waging war against them.
The King plundered colonial seas, ravaged coasts, burnt towns, and destroyed the lives of the people.
The King transported large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete works of death, desolation, and tyranny with cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages.
The King constrained fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country or fall by their friends' hands.
The King excited domestic insurrections and endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of the frontiers the merciless Indian savages.
Repeated petitions to the King for redress have been answered only by repeated injury.
The British brethren were warned repeatedly of attempts by their legislature to extend unwarrantable jurisdiction over the colonies, but were deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity.
As free and independent states, the colonies 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.
When any form of government becomes destructive of securing unalienable rights, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute new government.
The representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states, absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown.
“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.”
“With a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”
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