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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 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 to 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 shown, 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 mean time exposed
to all dangers of invasion from without, and
convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these
States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of
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 legislature.
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 of 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 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 attention 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 must 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.
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