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  1. The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Declaration of Independence
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  14. **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
  15. *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
  16. Title: The Declaration of Independence
  17. Release Date: December, 1971 [EBook #1]
  18. [Most recently updated: November 25, 2004]
  19. Edition: 12
  20. Language: English
  21. Character set encoding: ASCII
  22. ***
  23. The United States Declaration of Independence was the first Etext
  24. released by Project Gutenberg, early in 1971. The title was stored
  25. in an emailed instruction set which required a tape or diskpack be
  26. hand mounted for retrieval. The diskpack was the size of a large
  27. cake in a cake carrier, cost $1500, and contained 5 megabytes, of
  28. which this file took 1-2%. Two tape backups were kept plus one on
  29. paper tape. The 10,000 files we hope to have online by the end of
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  32. all to use and copy in any manner they choose. Please feel free to
  33. make your own edition using this as a base.
  34. In my research for creating this transcription of our first Etext,
  35. I have come across enough discrepancies [even within that official
  36. documentation provided by the United States] to conclude that even
  37. "facsimiles" of the Declaration of Indendence will NOT going to be
  38. all the same as the original, nor of other "facsimiles." There is
  39. a plethora of variations in capitalization, punctuation, and, even
  40. where names appear on the documents [which names I have left out].
  41. The resulting document has several misspellings removed from those
  42. parchment "facsimiles" I used back in 1971, and which I should not
  43. be able to easily find at this time, including "Brittain."
  44. [JT, Apr 05: "Brittish", however, is spelled as in the original.]
  45. **The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Declaration of Independence**
  46. The Declaration of Independence of The United States of America
  47. IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776
  48. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
  49. When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for
  50. one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected
  51. them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the earth,
  52. the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and
  53. of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions
  54. of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
  55. impel them to the separation.
  56. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
  57. that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
  58. that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
  59. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,
  60. deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
  61. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,
  62. it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute
  63. new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing
  64. its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect
  65. their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments
  66. long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
  67. and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed
  68. to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing
  69. the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and
  70. usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce
  71. them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw
  72. off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
  73. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now
  74. the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.
  75. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated
  76. injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment
  77. of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts
  78. be submitted to a candid world.
  79. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary
  80. for the public good.
  81. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate
  82. and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation
  83. till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended,
  84. he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
  85. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of
  86. large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish
  87. the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right
  88. inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
  89. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
  90. uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their
  91. Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them
  92. into compliance with his measures.
  93. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing
  94. with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
  95. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions,
  96. to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers,
  97. incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large
  98. for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed
  99. to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
  100. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States;
  101. for that purpose obstructing the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners;
  102. refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither,
  103. and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
  104. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent
  105. to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
  106. He has made judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure
  107. of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
  108. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of
  109. Officers to harass our People, and eat out their substance.
  110. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies
  111. without the Consent of our legislatures.
  112. He has affected to render the Military independent of
  113. and superior to the Civil Power.
  114. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction
  115. foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws;
  116. giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended legislation:
  117. For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
  118. For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders
  119. which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
  120. For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
  121. For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:
  122. For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
  123. For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
  124. For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring
  125. Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government,
  126. and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once
  127. an example and fit instrument for introducing the same
  128. absolute rule into these Colonies:
  129. For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws,
  130. and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
  131. For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves
  132. invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
  133. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection
  134. and waging War against us.
  135. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns,
  136. and destroyed the lives of our people.
  137. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries
  138. to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun
  139. with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the
  140. most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a civilized nation.
  141. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas
  142. to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of
  143. their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
  144. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has
  145. endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers,
  146. the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare,
  147. is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
  148. In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress
  149. in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered
  150. only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked
  151. by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler
  152. of a free People.
  153. Nor have We been wanting in attention to our Brittish brethren.
  154. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their
  155. legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
  156. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and
  157. settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice
  158. and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our
  159. common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably
  160. interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been
  161. deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore,
  162. acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them,
  163. as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
  164. We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America,
  165. in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of
  166. the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name,
  167. and by the Authority of the good People of these Colonies,
  168. solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are,
  169. and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;
  170. that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown,
  171. and that all political connection between them and the State
  172. of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved;
  173. and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to
  174. levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce,
  175. and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may
  176. of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm
  177. reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge
  178. to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
  179. ***
  180. End of The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Declaration of Independence
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