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.

Rights are secured by instituting Governments among men deriving their powers from the consent of the governed. When the Government repeatedly abrogates and perverts the compact between itself and the States usurping the power, authority, and self governance reserved to the States and the people it becomes destructive to the original ends and intent of that compact and it then becomes the right and the duty of the people to institute new Government.