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 inalienable

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

[George III] 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.

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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:

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* 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:

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* 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 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.