COMMENCED, AT VANDALIA, DECEMBER 2, 1822. AND ENDED FEBRUARY 18, 1823. TO WHICH ARE PREFIXED THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION, THE 1. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. IN CONGRESS, JULY 4th, 1776. THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN United stateS OF AMERICA. WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have conected 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 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, 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 sc curity. 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. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the plic good. ar his He has forbi governors to pass laws of immediate and presang impornce, unless suspended in their operation, till his |