S. 4828

[Congressional Bills 119th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 4828 Considered and Passed Senate (CPS)]

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119th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 4828

To reaffirm the Declaration of Independence as an Organic Law of the 
United States.

_______________________________________________________________________

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

June 18, 2026

Mr. Schmitt introduced the following bill; which was read twice, 
considered, read the third time and passed

_______________________________________________________________________

A BILL

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.''.
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