PART II. 



DOCUMENTS BEARING ON THE TREATY OF 1783. 



No. 1. 1776, July If.: The United States Declaration of Independ- 

 ence. In Congress, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of 

 the IS 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 re- 

 quires 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 unalien- 

 able 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 destruc- 

 tive 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 organising 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 ex- 

 perience 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 neces- 

 sary 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 



