[BaldBil]

.....course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the seperate 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 seperation.

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 those ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Government long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, 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 usurptations, 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 Britian is a history of repeated injuries and usurptations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, lets facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Lawws, the most wholesome and necessaryfor the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass lwas 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 accomodation of large districts of people, unless those peolple would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable 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 measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, 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 dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent 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 pay of their salaries.
Hes has erected a multitude of New offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out of their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace. Standing Armies without Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected the render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our lawa; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretende Legislation: For Quartering laegr 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 treade 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 the Seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free System of English Laws in neighbouring Province, establishing therin and Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rules into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Government: For suspending our own Legislature 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, alreday begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely 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, the become executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestin insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppresions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answeredonly by reoeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be a ruler of free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish(sic) 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 settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurptations, which would inevitibaly interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and consanguinity. We must therfore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Seperation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the represantatives of the united states of America, in General Congress, Assembled 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 thes Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Indendent 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 support of this Declaration, with a firm relaince on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.