IN
CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The
unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
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...
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