In Congress, July 4, 1776.
[The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,]1
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.]1