ly represent, and that the Union
shall be perpetual. In witness whereof, we have hereunto set our hands
in Congress. Done at Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsylvania, the
ninth day of July, in the year of our Lord 1778, and in the third year
of the Independence of America.

III

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

THE following preamble and specifications, known as the Declaration of
Independence, accompanied the resolution of Richard Henry Lee, which was
adopted by Congress on the 2d day of July, 1776. This declaration was
agreed to on the 4th, and the transaction is thus recorded in the
Journal for that day:

"Agreeably to the order of the day, the Congress resolved itself into a
committee of the whole, to take into their further consideration the
Declaration; and, after some time, the president resumed the chair, and
Mr. Harrison reported that the committee have agreed to a Declaration,
which they desired him to report. The Declaration being read, was agreed
to as follows:"

A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED.

When, in the course of human 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 hold these truths to be self-evident--that all men are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable 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 abolish it, and to institute a new government,
laying its foundations 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
aboli