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Peacock Middle > Sixth Grade > Mr. Peel >
1st Paragraph
1. When, in the course of human events,
There comes a time in History
2. it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,
when the American People must break away from England,
3. 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,
and become a separate nation, equal with other nations, like God planned all along.
4. a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
We care about what the rest of the world thinks,
5. requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
so we’ll tell you why we were forced to declare independence.
2nd paragraph
1. We hold these truths to be self-evident:
Everyone can see that the following things are true:
2. That all men are created equal;
All people are created with equal rights;
3. that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights;
God made them with rights that cannot be taken away;
4. that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
These include Life, Political Freedom, and Economic Freedom.
5. That, to secure these rights,
to make sure we have these rights,
6. governments are instituted among men,
people set up governments to protect these rights.
7. deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed;
Governments get their powers from the "O.K." of the people;
8. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends,
if a government tries to take away people’s rights,
9. it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.
the people may change or get rid of that government.
10. and to institute new government,
and set up a new government,
11. laying its foundation on such principles,
it should be based on principles,
12. and organizing its powers in such form,
and its power should be organized,
13. as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
so that it protects the safety and happiness of the people.
14. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
We should be cautious, and if a government has been around for a long time, don’t change it just because of some little thing (or because of something that might change back again in a few years.)
15. and accordingly all experience hath shown
because of this, History has shown
16. that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,
that people will suffer as long as they can,
17. than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
rather than get rid of a government that they’re used to.
18. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
But when a long list of bad things happen, and the leaders illegally seize power,
19. pursuing invariably the same object,
and it looks like what they’re after,
20. evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism,
is a plan to put the people under an evil dictatorship,
21. it is their right, it is their duty,
it is the right and duty of the people,
22. to throw off such government,
to get rid of that evil government,
23. and to provide new guards for their future security.
and set up a new government that will protect their rights in the future.
24. Such has been the patience sufferance of these colonies;
The American Colonies have suffered patiently;
25. and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government.
but now we must change our old system of government.
26. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,
In the past King George has repeatedly hurt the colonies and illegally seized power.
27. all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.
His plan all along has been to become a dictator over the colonies.
28. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
To prove what we say, here is a list of what he’s done.
3rd paragraph — 29th paragraph(27 injustices of the King)& final paragraph
1. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has refused to approve necessary colonial laws.
2. 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’s forbidden the governors to approve necessary colonial laws and delayed the passing of other laws.
3. 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.
In some districts he has refused to pass laws unless people gave up their democratic rights.
4. 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 called legislative bodies together hastily and in unusual places (so that they would give in to his demands).
5. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has dissolved Legislatures for opposing him when he tried to take away our rights.
6. 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.
After closing down our legislatures, he has refused to let us elect a new one and our colony was left unprotected.
7. He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.
He has tried to keep the colonies from growing by preventing immigration and land ownership by immigrants.
8. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has refused to let us have our own courts.
9. He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He decided how long judges should serve and what they should be paid.
10. He has erected a multitude of new offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He set up new offices and sent a bunch of new officers here and we’ll have to pay them.
11. He has kept among us in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.
He’s kept armies here in peacetime without our consent.
12. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.
He’s put us under military rule.
13. 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:
He’s tried to rule us by laws that are completely different from our own. Here’s a list of what those laws have done:
14. For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;
Keeping troops in the colonies without our consent and making us house and feed them; (Quartering Act)
15. For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;
His soldiers murdered us and weren’t even punished. (Boston Massacre);
16. For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;
cutting off trade (blockade)
17. For imposing taxes on us without our consent;
Taxing without our consent.
18. For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;
took away our right to a trial by jury;
19. For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;
He made us go to England for a trial based on fake charges;
20. For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring 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;
he did away with Canada’s laws and enlarged Canada’s boundaries. He might try to take away our laws too.
21. For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the forms of our governments;
He took away our charters and changed our form of Government;
22. For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
The King took away our legislatures and says that he and Parliament have the power to make all laws for us.
23. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.
The King has given up his right to govern us because he’s waged war against us.
24. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He’s attacked our coasts, burned our towns, and killed our people.
25. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete 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 the head of a civilized nation.
He has hired armies of foreign soldiers (Hessians) to fight us and then he’ll rule us like a tyrant.
26. 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.
American citizens, taken prisoner at sea, have been forced to fight against us.
27. He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored 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.
He's stirred up quarrels among us and tried to get the Indians to kill all Americans on the frontier.
28. 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.
When the King has done something wrong, we asked him to correct it and he only injures us more. A King who acts like a tyrant is not fit to rule us.
29. Nor have we been wanting in our 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 consanquinity. 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’ve asked the people of Great Britain to speak out against what Parliament and the King have been doing to us. They haven’t listened to us either. We’ll just have to figure that if there’s a war, they’ll be our enemies. If there’s peace, they’ll be our friends.
We, the representatives of the United States, knowing that God is our judge, declare that these colonies are free and independent states. WE’RE FREE! We can depend on God’s protection. In support of this declaration we pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
