"_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 experiences hath shewn, 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, evidence 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 System 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._" Starting off with a rhetorical device--the pretense that its heresies are acceptable commonplaces, this long paragraph builds a philosophy of government on the unproved and inflammatory assumptions which it calls "self-evident". The self-evident truths are, in effect, _the terms agreed upon by the signers_. These signers now appear for the first time, they say "_we_ hold", they say that, to themselves, certain truths are self-evident. The first three of "these truths" are some general statements about "all men"; the fourth and fifth tell why governments are established and why they should be overthrown. These two are the objective of the first three; but they have been neglected in favor of adolescent disputation over the equality of men at birth, and they have been forgotten in our adult pursuit of happiness which has often made us forget that life and liberty, no less than large incomes, are among our inalienable rights.