Declaration of Independence
——选自《晨读英语美文100篇》
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
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.
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