Am
"
Vol. XV.
LINCOLN NEB., JUNE 25, 1903.
No. 5.
3C
Si
IM Foundation of American
ilwlrw
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
,C Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America:
r ' - - - . ' --s '
WHEH, 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 un
alienable rights; thatfamong these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are in
stituted 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 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
1 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 GreatJBritain is a history ,of repeated injuries and usurpations, all hav-'
ing in direct object the establishment erf an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid
world: ' V" r-'V-V "-r ;1;-V:.;,':,.;--,;.;..:'v; r ..; .. r.Vr?:" ... - . - 7 ;-':"r r:';"-:'"'
He his 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 operations till his
Assent should be obtained: and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. V
He has refused to pass other -laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish' the
'' fight of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. V
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,' uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Rec
ords, for the sole purpose of fatigum
" He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the peopleT"
He. has-refused for a long ,tim,e after ;,such dssolutionsr to cause others to be elected whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable
of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for the exercise, the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers
of invasion from without and convulsions within. . - . t
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states, for that purpose obstructing the laws for the Naturalization of For
eigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migration 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 Wjll alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has enacted 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,
rile 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 neighboring. Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and
enlarging its Boundaries,".so as to render it at once an example and tit instrument for introducing the same absolute .rule into these
Colonies:. .''-:,;r .,, - ' ." ' ' '
"V For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, altering fundamentally, the Form 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 Uvea of our people.
He is, at this time, transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, al
ready begun, with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head
of a civilized nation. i , .
He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken Captive on the high Seas, to bear arms against their' Country, to become the execu
tioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. .
He naa excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our f rentiers the merciless :
Indian Savages, whose. known rules 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. ! , v . . , ' 's
: Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our, British brethren. We have warned them from time to. time, of attempts made by
their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. Ve 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 com
mon 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 tile necessity which denounces oui-scpara-tion,
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 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 .these Colonies, sol- 4
emnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to. .be, Free and Independent States; that they are Ab
solved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection .between them and the State of Great Britain is,
and ought to be, totally dissolved; and, that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levrWar, conclude Peace, con-
5 And for the support of this Declaration, with firm" reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence we muti
otner our juives, our x onunes, ana our aacred honor. .
itually pledge to each
