in the Course of human events,it becomes necessary forone people to dissolve the political bands which have connectedthem with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth,the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature andof Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinionsof mankind requires that they should declare the causes whichimpel 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 institutenew Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizingits powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effecttheir Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governmentslong established should not be changed for light and transient causes;and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposedto suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishingthe forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses andusurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reducethem under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throwoff such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is nowthe necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeatedinjuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishmentof an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Factsbe submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessaryfor the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediateand pressing importance, unless suspended in their operationtill 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 oflarge districts of people, unless those people would relinquishthe right of Representation in the Legislature, a rightinestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of theirPublic Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing theminto compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposingwith 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 largefor their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposedto 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 of Naturalization of Foreigners;refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither,and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the A