They Did the Work; NOW USA Is "We The People's" RESPONSIBILITY: All WE Have To Do is - VOTE EVERY TWO Years and ELECT A GOVERNMENT "Of the People, By the People, For the People"

 Action of Second Continental Congress, July 4, 1776.  

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen 

United States of America, 

The Declaration of Independence

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 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 shewn,

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 History of the present King of Great-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 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 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,

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 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 pass 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 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 harrass our People,

and eat 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

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 pre-tended Offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws

in a neighbouring Province,

establishing therein an arbitrary Government and

enlarging its Boundaries,

so as to render it at once an Example

and fit Instrument for introducing

the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters,

abolishing our most valuable Laws, and

altering fundamentally the forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and

declaring themselves invested with Power

to legislate for us in all Cases whatsoever.

He has

abdicated Government here,

by declaring us out of his Protection and

waging 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 and Perfidy,

scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages,

and totally unworthy

of 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 fall themselves by their Hands.

He has

excited domestic Insurrections amongst us,

and has

endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers,

the merciless Indian Savages,

whose known Rule of Warfare,

is an undistinguished Destruction,

of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions

we have Petitioned for Redress

in the most humble Terms:

Our repeated Petitions

have been answered only by repeated Injury.

A Prince,

whose Character is thus marked

by every act which may define a Tyrant,

is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People.

Nor have we been wanting in Attentions

to our British Brethren.

We have warned them from Time to Time

of Attempts by their Legislature

to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.

We have reminded them of the

Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here.

We have appealed to their native justice and Magnanimity,

and we have conjured them by the Ties

of our common Kindred

to disavow these Usurpations,

which, would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence.

They too have been deaf

to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity.

We must, therefore,

acquiesce in the Necessity,

which denounces our Separation,

and hold them,

as we hold the rest of Mankind,

Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.

We, therefore,

the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

in General Congress, Assembled,

appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World

for the Rectitude of our Intentions,

do, in the Name, and by Authority of

the good People of these Colonies,

solemnly Publish and Declare,

That these United Colonies are,

and of Right ought to be,

FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES,

that they are absolved from

all Allegiance to the British Crown,

and that all political Connection

between them and the State of Great-Britain,

is and ought to be totally dissolved;

and that as FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES,

they have full Power to levy War,

conclude Peace,

contract Alliances,

establish Commerce,

and to do all other

Acts and Things which

INDEPENDENT STATES may of right do.

And for the support of this Declaration,

with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence,

we mutually pledge to each other

our Lives,

our fortunes, and

our sacred Honor.