Practice Formatting a Document
Craig Ellison
Here is the complete text of the Declaration of
THE DECLARATION OF
(Adopted by Congress on July 4, 1776)
The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
people to dissolve the political bonds 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 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 to 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 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 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.