The preamble follows in these words: “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 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 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 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 declaration proceeds to give “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.” It then enters upon a specification of injuries and complaints, to the following purport— Assent has been refused to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. Governors have been forbidden to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till assented to in Britain; and when so suspended, an attention to them has been utterly neglected. Legislative bodies have been called together at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into a compliance with favorite measures. Houses of representatives have been dissolved repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness, invasions on the rights of the people.