American Tempest Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 invariablythe 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 history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all have in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be 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 pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation 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 large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
    He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depositor 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 of the rights of the people.
    He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
    He has endeavored to prevent the populations of these States; for that purpose obtaining the Laws of Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration 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 Will 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 hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
    He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

    The Declaration of Independence. Engrossed (handwritten) copy of the Declaration of Independence, issued in early 1777. The original document of July 4, 1776, bore but one signature—that of John Hancock—for more than a month until the various state legislatures approved it and authorized their delegates to the Continental Congress to sign it. (L IBRARY OF C ONGRESS )
    He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
    He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign 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, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States.
    For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world.
    For imposing taxes on us without our consent.
    For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury.
    For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses.
    For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government,