ssary 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 for 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 inalienable
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 a
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 system 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.

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for
the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should
be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend
to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of
representation in the le