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When ''in the Course of human events, it becomes necesary for one people to disolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to asume among the powers of the earth, the eparate and equal tation to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they hould declare the caues which impel them to the eparation. __________ We hold these truths to be elf-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 Happines.__ That to ecure 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 Happines. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established hould not be changed for light and transient caues; and accordingly all experience hath hewn, that mankind are more disposed to uffer, while evils are ufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and uurpations, 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 ecurity. __ Such has been the patient ufferance of these Colonies; and uch is now the necesity 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 uurpations, all having in direct object the etablishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be ubmitted to a candid world. ________ He has refused his Asent to Laws, the most wholesome and necesary for the public good. ______ He has forbidden his Governors to pas Laws of immediate and presing importance, unles uspended in their operation till his Asent should be obtained; and when so uspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.______ He has refused to pas other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unles those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inetimable 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 meaures. _____ He has disolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmnes his invaions on the rights of the people. ____ He has refused for a long time, after such disolutions, 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 pas 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 Asent 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 warms of Officers to harras our people, and eat out their ubstance.___ 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 Civil power. ___ He has combined with others to ubject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Asent 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 intrument for introducing the same absolute rule in 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 carcely 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 inurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciles Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, exes and conditions. In every tage of these Oppresions We have Petitioned for Redres 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 ettlement 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 uurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence They too havebeen deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necesity, 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 Congres, Asembled, 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, olemnly 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 disolved; 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 upport 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 acred Honor.

Button Gwinnett

Lyman Hall

Geo Walton.

W$m$ Hooper

Joseph Hewes

John Penn

Edward Rutledge.

Tho$s$ Heyward Jun$r$.

Thomas Lynch Jun$r$.

Arthur Middleton

John Hancock

Samuel Chase

W$ṃ$ Paca

Tho$ṣ$ Stone

Charles Carroll of Carrollton

George Wythe

Richard Henry Lee

Th Jefferson

Benj Harrison

Tho$s$ Nelson Jr.

Francis Lightfoot Lee

Carter Braxton.

Rob Morris

Benjamin Rush

Benj. Franklin

John Morton

Geo Clymer

Ja$s$. Smith.

Geo. Taylor

James Wilson

Geo. Ross

Caesar Rodney

Geo Read

Tho McKean

W$m$ Floyd

Phil. Livingston

Fran$ṣ$ Lewis

Lewis Morris

Rich Stockton

John Witherspoon

Fra$ṣ$ Hopkinson

John Hart

Abra. Clark

Josiah Bartlett

W$ṃ$ Whipple

Sam Adams

John Adams

Rob$t$ Treat Paine

Elbridge Gerry

Step. Hopkins

William Ellery

Roger Sherman

Sam$el$ Huntingdon

W$m$ Williams

Oliver Wolcott

Matthew Thornton