Happy Birthday, America!

[Haggridd]

Happy Birthday to U.S.
Happy Birthday to U.S.
Happy Birthday, dear United States of America,
Happy Birthday to U.S.



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 [George III] 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 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, for opposing with 
manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. 

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 mean time exposed to all the 
dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. 

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for 
that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; 
refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and 
raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. 

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his 
Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. 

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of 
their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of 
Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. 

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the 
consent of our legislatures. 

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to 
the Civil power. 

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: 

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: 

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders 
which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: 

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: 

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: 

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences: 

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring 
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: 

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and 
altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: 

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves 
invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. 

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his 
Protection and waging War against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and 
destroyed the lives of our people. 

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries 
to compleat 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 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. 

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured 
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. 

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. 

Nor have We been wanting in 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 
of consanguinity. 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, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, 
in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the 
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by 
the Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish 
and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be 
Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all 
Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection 
between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be 
totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have 
full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish 
Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent 
States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with 
a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually 
pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. 


Haggridd