1758
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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 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 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 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 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 harrass 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 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 Brittish 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.                                                 |
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