Frequency Analysis of the Declaration of
by
I got this text from the website: http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/ and I did a frequency analysis on all of the text shown below; including the signers’ names at the end.
Here is the Frequency Analysis breakdown:
7626 chars
a : 557 ... 7.3 %
b : 105 ... 1.4 %
c : 212 ... 2.8 %
d : 270 ... 3.5 %
e : 941 ... 12.3 %
f : 189 ... 2.5 %
g : 153 ... 2.0 %
h : 400 ... 5.2 %
i : 505 ... 6.6 %
j : 35 ... 0.5 %
k : 23 ... 0.3 %
l : 284 ... 3.7 %
m : 181 ... 2.4 %
n : 553 ... 7.3 %
o : 586 ... 7.7 %
p : 153 ... 2.0 %
q : 6 ... 0.1 %
r : 501 ... 6.6 %
s : 528 ... 6.9 %
t : 691 ... 9.1 %
u : 220 ... 2.9 %
v : 78 ... 1.0 %
w : 121 ... 1.6 %
x : 10 ... 0.1 %
y : 96 ... 1.3 %
z : 4 ... 0.1 %
e : 941
t : 691
o : 586
a : 557
n : 553
s : 528
i : 505
r : 501
h : 400
l : 284
d : 270
u : 220
c : 212
f : 189
m : 181
g : 153
p : 153
w : 121
b : 105
y : 96
v : 78
j : 35
k : 23
x : 10
q : 6
z : 4
Notice how ‘e’ is
the most frequent letter by far with a percentage of 12.3% followed by ‘t’ with
9.1% and having ‘n’ and ‘s’ close behind. This follows what we studied in
class!
“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,
He has refuted 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
mean time 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 benefit 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 compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny,
already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & 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 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
to 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.
--John Hancock
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson,
John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer,
James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles
Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas
Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch,
Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton”