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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 seperate and equal station to which the laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for the opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to this seperation.
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. 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 altar or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundations 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, dictates that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all historical experience hath shown that mankind are disposed to suffer, while the evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are long 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.
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