晨读英语美文100篇 Passage 5 Declaration of Independence

[00:00.87]Passage 5 Declaration of Independence

[00:07.00]When in the Course of human events,

[00:10.39]it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands

[00:15.75]which have connected them with another,

[00:17.93]and to assume among the powers of the earth,

[00:21.22]the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,

[00:28.33]a decent respect to the opinions of mankind

[00:32.16]requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

[00:38.08]We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,

[00:44.74]that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

[00:50.21]that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

[00:55.47]—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,

[01:00.39]deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

[01:05.31]—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends,

[01:10.67]it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,

[01:15.38]and to institute new Government,

[01:17.90]laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,

[01:24.35]as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

[01:30.37]Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established

[01:35.51]should not be changed for light and transient causes;

[01:39.34]and accordingly all experience has shown,

[01:42.62]that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable,

[01:48.64]than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

[01:53.89]But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,

[01:58.16]pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them

[02:03.63]under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty,

[02:08.88]to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

[02:15.56]—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies;

[02:20.58]and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

[02:28.49]The history of the present King of Great Britain [George III]

[02:34.00]is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations,

[02:38.82]all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

[02:45.49]To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.