In Congress, July 4th, 1776, the unanimous declaration of the 13 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 see most likely to affect 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 has 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, and when a long train of abuses and usurpations,

pursuing invariably the same object ev vincis 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.

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