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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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