Which Best Describes the Conclusion of the Declaration of Independence

I
N

CONGRESS, J
ULY four, 1776

The unanimous Declaration
of the xiii united
States of America

hen in the Course of man 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 concord these truths to be self-axiomatic, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with sure unalienable Rights, that amid these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted amongst Men, deriving their but powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever whatever Course of Authorities 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 Condom and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should non be changed for low-cal and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more tending to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to correct 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 pattern to reduce them under absolute Despotism, information technology is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Authorities, and to provide new Guards for their time to come security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their sometime Systems of Regime. The history of the present Rex of Nifty 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 exist submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to laissez passer Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their functioning till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of big districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right costive to them and formidable to tyrants merely.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, later such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Anything, accept returned to the People at big for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to laissez passer others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Volition alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent here swarms of Officers to harass our people and swallow out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military machine independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to bailiwick us to a jurisdiction strange to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, past a mock Trial from punishment for whatsoever Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Merchandise with all parts of the globe:

For imposing Taxes on u.s. without our Consent:

For depriving usa in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the costless System of English language Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries and so as to render it at once an instance and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute dominion into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our ain Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Authorities hither, past declaring us out of his Protection and waging State of war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most vicious ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to autumn themselves by their Easily.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst united states of america, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished devastation of all ages, sexes and weather.

In every phase of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the nearly apprehensive terms: Our repeated Petitions take been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked past every act which may ascertain a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a complimentary people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from fourth dimension to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over usa. We accept reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We accept appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and nosotros have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too take been deaf to the vocalization of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, every bit we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

Nosotros, therefore, the Representatives of the the states of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Guess of the earth for the rectitude of our intentions, practice, in the Proper noun, and by Authority of the practiced People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Correct ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Fidelity to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the Country of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Contained States, they have total Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, constitute Commerce, and to exercise all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of correct do. — And for the back up of this Declaration, with a house reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

New Hampshire:

Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:

John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:

Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:

Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:

William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:

Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:

Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:

Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:

Samuel Hunt, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:

George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:

William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:

Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:

Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton