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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.
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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,
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.
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