BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE TTNITED STATES OF ANIERICA, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED When, in the course of human events, it be comes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands uhich 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 3auses which Impel them to the separation, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are en dowed 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 gov ernment becomes destructive of these ends, it Is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a 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 ex perience bath 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 govern ment, and to provide new guards for their fu ture security. Such has been the patient suffer ance of these colonies, and such is now the ne cessity 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 abso lute tyranny over these States. To prove this,
let facts be submitted to a candid world : He has refused to 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 ac commodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of rep resentation in the legislature; a right inesti mable 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 re peatedly, 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 an nihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of inva sion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States ; for that purpose, obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners ; refu ing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appro priations of lands.
He has obstructed the administration of jus tice, by refusing his assent to laws for establish ing 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 ont of their substance.