CHAPTER III. 



DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, PRESIDENTS, AND SENATORS. 



THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 



Adopted by Congress, July 4, 1776. 



A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES OF 

 AMERICA, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED. 



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 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 gov- 

 ernment becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to 

 alter or 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 a 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 establish- 

 ment 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. 



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