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<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> www.archives.gov July 6, 2011 <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription <br />IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. <br />The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, <br /> <br />When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve <br />the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the <br />powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of <br />Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they <br />should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. <br />We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are <br />endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, <br />Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are <br />instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That <br />whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of <br />the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation <br />on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most <br />likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that <br />Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and <br />accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while <br />evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are <br />accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the <br />same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it <br />is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future <br />security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the <br />necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history <br />of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all <br />having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To <br />prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. <br />He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary <br />for the public good. <br />He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and <br />pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent <br />should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected <br />to attend to them. <br />He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large <br />districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of <br />Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and <br />formidable to tyrants only. <br />He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, <br />uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, <br />for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his <br />measures. <br />He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with <br />manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. <br />He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others <br />to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, <br />have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State <br />remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from <br />without, and convulsions within. <br />He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that <br /> <br />