der
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 exhibited to
a candid world.

"He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary
for the public good.

"He has forbidden his Governours to pass laws of immediate and
pressing importance, unless suspended in their operations 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
rights 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 depositories 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 invasion on the rights of the people.

"He has refused, for a long time after such dissolution, 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 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.