When it becomes necessary to get rid of the current political order and take on the power of our own government (a power granted to us by the laws of nature and by God), it is respectful to list the reasons for the separation from the previous governing system. We believe these truths are self-evident: That all men are created equal. That all men are given the right to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness by the Creator and that these rights are part of human existence. A Government is created by men in order to ensure that we have these rights, and the government created answers to the governed. When any Government becomes destructive towards our rights, it is the Right of the People to change the Government, or completely do away with it and to establish a new Government that will ensure their safety and allow them to pursue happiness. It is only with much consideration that one should change their long-standing Government. It shouldn't be for little or quickly passing reasons that we do this. It's become apparent by observing that mankind is more happy to suffer while evils are sufferable than to make things right by changing the norms they are used to. But when the abuses and usurpations take place for the same reasons that point to authoritarianism, it is the people's right and duty to throw off such a Government and to provide new guards for their future security. This has been what the Colonies has suffered patiently and it has now become necessary 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 a motive of the establishment of absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a truthful world. The King has refused to allow certain laws that would be wholesome and necessary for the people's good to pass. He has forbidden his Governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless put on hold till his consent is given, and when it has been put on hold he has completely neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass laws that help large districts of people unless they relinquish their rights to Representation. He has made legislative bodies exhaust themselves to go to the time and place of his choosing to make them comply with what he has mandated instead of changing them. He has gotten rid of Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness (like chads) his invasions on the rights of people. He has refused for a long time, after getting rid of the Representative Houses, to cause others to be elected that are representative of the people of Britain, not the colonies making the states, in the meantime, vulnerable to dangers of invasion without and issues within. He has worked to prevent the population of these States, obstructing the laws for Naturalization of Foreigners, refusing to pass other laws that would encourage people to come to the states to help improve the conditions of the States. He has refused to allow the establishment of Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will only by withholding tenure and salaries if they don't comply. He has created many new offices and sent in many officers to harass the people and eat all of our food. He has kept standing armies in times of peace without our consent. He has made the military separate from and stronger than the people's power. He has given foreign powers the ability to make decisions and do things contrary to established law such as: Housing large bodies of armed troops with us, Protecting those armed troops from murders which they have committed to us, cut off our trade, imposed taxes on us without consent, deprived us of the benefit of a trial by jury, transported us overseas to be tried for fake offences, abolished the free System of English Laws and created an arbitrary government and enlarged its boundaries from being a small example of how to run things to the entire rule of law for the colonies. He has taken away our constitution, getting rid of our most valuable laws, and completely changing the forms of our government. He has suspended our legislatures and declared themselves invested with the power to dictate our laws to us. He has gotten rid of Government here by declaring us outside of his protection and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coats, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time taking large armies of foreign warriors for hire to finally kill us until we submit to his tyranny. He has already tried to accomplish this through cruelty and betrayal that can't even be compared to the most barbaric of times and he is unworthy to be in charge of a civilized nation. He has forced our people who have been taken captive by other forces on the seas to bear arms against their own country, to execute their own friends and family, and to die themselves by their hands. He has incited insurrections among us through the Indians who kill indiscriminately. In every instance, we have tried to petition for a change in the most humble of terms. But they have all been answered by further injuries. A Prince who is such a Tyrant to have done these things is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. We haven't been untouched by our British brothers either. They have warned us several times that they could have legislative power over us. We have reminded them of the agreed circumstances of our living here. We have appealed to their kindness and the fact that we are of the same people to disavow these threats that would cut our communication. They do not listen. Since they do not acknowledge our separation from the King and our previous Government, we must consider them as enemies in war and in peace as friends. So, we, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to God for the reasons we have listed, do, in the Name, and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these United Colonies are, and by Right should be, Free and Independent States; that they are separated from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and should be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent 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 my do by rights. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of God, we pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our Sacred Honor.