THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
37 lines✦
hen, in the course of human events, it becomes nec-essary for one people to dissolve tiie political bands whichhave connected them with another, and to assume, amongthe powers of the earth, the separate and equal station towhich the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them,a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires thatthey should declare the causes which impel them to theseparation. We hold these truths to be self-evident—that all menare created equal; that they are endowed by their Creatorwith certain inaliena‘le rights; that among these are life,liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure theserights, governments are instituted among men, deriving theirjust powers from the consent of the governed ; that, wheneverany form of government becomes destructive of these ends, itis the right of the people to alter or abolish it,and to institute anew government, laying its foundations on such principles, Cummings’ Encyclopedia, 493 and organizing its powers in such form.as to them shall seemmost likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence,indeed, will dictate that governments long establishedshould not be changed for light and transient causes: and,accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind aremore di-posed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than toright themselves ty abolishing the forms to which they areaccustomed. But when along train of abuses and usurpa-tions, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a designto reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right,it is their duty, to throw off such government,and to providenew guards for their futire security. Such has been the -patient suff>rance of these coloniss, and such is now thenecessity which constrains them to alter their form»r sys-tems of government. The history of the present king ofGreat Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpa-tions, all having in direct object the establishment of anabsolute tyranny over thse states. To prove this let factsbe submitted to a candid world.
✦