In Louisiana, actions for labor performed, for provisions retailed, and for board, supplies for vessels, freight charges, &c., one year. For arrearages of rent, hire of property, money lent, services of physicians, and of teachers by the year or quarter, three years. On promissory notes and bills of exchange, five years.

In Texas, actions of trespass for injury to property; of trover and conversion; for taking away goods and chattels ; and upon open account, two years. For assault and battery, slander, and libel, one year. Real actions in three, five, or ten years, according to the grade of title.

In Arkansas, actions upon judgments, decrees, and sealed instruments, ten years. Upon promissory notes, and other instruments not under seal, five years. Actions of account, assumpsit, or case, founded on any other contract or liability, three years.

In Tennessee, actions of account, and upon the case; of debt for arrearages of rent; of detinue, replevin, and trespass upon land, three years. On a contract or lending, without specialty, (which includes promissory notes, &c.,) six years. Assault, battery, wounding, and imprisonment, one year. Slander, six months.

In Kentucky, actions upon account for goods, or for articles charged in store account, within one year from the first of January next after the times of the delivery. Actions upon ordinary contracts; upon liabilities created by statute other than penalties or forfeitures; for trespass upon real property; for taking, detaining, or injuring personal property; for relief on the ground of fraud; on promissory notes, bills of exchange, &c., five years. Assault, &c., libel, and slander, one year.

In Ohio, actions on promissory notes, or other obligations or contracts in writing, fifteen years. Upon contracts not in writing, book accounts, liabilities created by statute, other than forfeitures and penalties, six years. For trespass upon real property; for taking, detaining, or injuring personal property; for injury to the rights of the plaintiff not arising on contract; for relief on the ground of fraud, four years. For libel, slander, assault and battery, false imprisonment, and upon a statute for a penalty or forfeiture, one year.

In Michigan, actions of debt founded on contract or lia

bility not under seal; for arrears of rent; of assumpsit, or upon the case, founded on any contract or liability express or implied; of waste, of replevin, trover, and other actions for taking, detaining, or injuring goods or chattels; and other actions on the case, six years. For trespass upon land, assault and battery, false imprisonment, slander, and libel, two years. Personal actions upon other contracts, ten years.

In Indiana, actions on accounts and contracts not in writing; for rents of real property; for detaining and injuring property; and for relief against frauds, six years. For injuries to person or character, and for a penalty or forfeiture given by statute, two years.

In Illinois, actions of trespass, detinue, trover, and replevin; for taking away goods and chattels; for arrearages of rent due on a parol lease; actions of account, and upon the case, five years. For assault, battery, wounding, and imprisonment, two years. For words, one year. Actions of debt on contracts under seal, and promissory notes, sixteen years.

In Missouri, actions upon any writing, sealed or unsealed, for the direct payment of money or property, ten years. Upon contracts, express or implied; upon a liability created by statute other than a penalty or forfeiture; for trespass upon real estate; for taking, detaining, or injuring goods and chattels, or for the recovery of specific personal property; for injuries to the rights of persons, and for relief on the ground of frauds, five years. For penalty or forfeiture, where it is given to the party aggrieved, or to him or to the state, three years. Qui tam actions, one year after the commission of the offense; if commenced by a state's attorney, two years. For libel, assault, imprisonment, &c., two years.

In Iowa, actions of debt for rent; upon promissory notes or writings for the direct payment of money, or delivery of property; and actions of assumpsit, six years. Actions for trespass, detinue, trover, and replevin; for taking away goods, &c.; for arrearages of rent due on parol lease; actions of account, and upon the case, five years. For assault, &c., and imprisonment, two years; for slanderous words, one year.

In Wisconsin, actions of debt founded on contract or lia

bility not under seal; upon judgments in courts not of record; for arrears of rent; of assumpsit, or on the case, founded on a contract or liability, express or implied; for waste, and trespass on land; of replevin, and other actions for taking, detaining, or injuring goods or chattels; and other actions on the case, six years. For assault, &c., false imprisonment, slander, and libel, two years.

In Minnesota, actions upon contracts; upon liabilities created by statute, other than those for penalties or forfeitures; for trespass upon real property; for taking, detaining, or injuring personal property, and for the specific recovery thereof; for injuries to the persons or rights of another not arising on obligation; and for relief on the ground of fraud, six years. An action for libel, slander, assault, battery, and false imprisonment; and for a penalty to the state, two years. An action upon a statute for a penalty given in whole or in part to the prosecutor, one year; if not commenced by a private party, two years. For a penalty where the action is given to the party aggrieved, three years.

In California, actions upon contracts, obligations, or liabilities, founded on instruments of writing generally, four years. Upon liabilities created by statute, other than penalties or forfeitures; for trespass upon real property; for taking, detaining, or injuring goods and chattels, and for the specific recovery of personal property; and for relief on the ground of fraud, three years. Upon a contract or liability not founded on an instrument of writing, except an open account, and articles charged in a store account, two years. For libel, slander, assault, battery, and false imprisonment; on an open account for goods, sold and delivered, and for any article charged in a store account, one year.

It is provided in most of the states, if not in all of them, that if a debtor departs from and resides without the state during any part of the time limited for commencing an action, the time of his absence is not to be taken as any part of that time; and if a debtor so leaves the state before the cause of action accrues, the period of limitation is to be computed from the time of his return to the state.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.
July 4th, 1776.

A DECLARATION BY THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES

OF AMERICA, IN [general] 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 [inherent and] 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 abolish it, and to institute a 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

certain

*This is a copy of the original draft of Jefferson, as reported to congress. The parts struck out by congress are printed in italics, and enclosed in brackets; and the parts added are placed in the margin, or in a concurrent column.

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 [begun at a distinguished period and] 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 [expunge] their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain, is a repeated history of [unremitting] injuries and usurpations, all having [among which appears no solitary fact to contradict the uniform tenor of the rest, but all have} in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, [for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.]

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

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 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.

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 dissolved representative houses repeatedly [and continually] for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.