Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0389/03896.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 10KB | 266 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03896}
$Pretitle{444}
$Title{United States of America
The Declaration of Independence}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Congress of the United States of America}
$Affiliation{Government of the United States of America}
$Subject{states
laws
government
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$Date{1776}
$Log{}
Country:     United States of America
Book:        The Declaration of Independence
Author:      Congress of the United States of America
Affiliation: Government of the United States of America
Date:        1776

The Declaration of Independence

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

     When in the 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 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.

     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 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 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.

     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 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 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
pass 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 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 payment of their salaries.

     He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of
officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

     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 the
civil power.

     He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to
our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent 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 offenses:

     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 instrument for
introducing the same absolute rule into 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
complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of cruelty and 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, to become the executioners of their friends
and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

     He has excited domestic 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 oppressions we have petitioned for redress 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 British 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, and we have conjured them by the ties of
our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably
interrupt our connections and correspondence.  They too have been deaf to the
voice of justice and of consanguinity.  We must, therefore, acquiesce in the
necessity 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 Congress, Asse