04-07-2012, 09:36 AM
Declaration of Independence
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When, in the course of human events, it becomes
necessary for one people to dissolve the political
bonds 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 to 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 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. 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.