A Declaration of Independence

Today, the Independence Holiday of America, I figured maybe we should study the document itself, to refocus our energies on what is right and good rather than what 'feels' a certain way.  With the freedom that we enjoy today comes a solemn responsibility to continue improving ourselves and our country.

A modern English translation:

We 13 colonies unanimously declare that we are independent.  It is proper that when people declare independence, they explain the causes for which they are seeking independence.

All men are created equal before the law and before the God who has given them unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of "Happiness".  To secure these rights, we create governments who derive their powers from the governed and if a government becomes too destructive, it is right for people to abolish it.  Governments should not be changed for 'light and transient causes', but people should suffer without violence, attempting to correct the wrongs until it is too much, and then the government should be overthrown and replaced by new 'Guards for their security'.  The King has been a tyrant, and here are the facts.

• We have sent our grievances to England and the King has ignored them.
• He forbade his governors from passing our local laws until the King reviewed them, and then he ignored them.
• He has refused to incorporate the American colonies as part of the legislature of England.
• He calls legislative bodies together at odd times and places to force them to comply with his wishes.
• He dissolves the representative houses that we try to create.
• He does not let anyone else create representation for us, and the colonies have remained in danger from internal and external conflicts.
• He refuses to allow people to immigrate here, doesn't naturalize foreigners, and does not let us expand West.
• He obstructs the creation of Judiciary powers in the colonies.
• He makes judges rule the way he wishes, and they are solely reliant on him for pay.
• He has created a bureaucracy in the colonies to harass the colonists and take what they want.
• He keeps standing armies in our cities during times of peace without our consent.
• He has given the military authority over everyone else in the colonies.
• He joined with others to submit us to jurisdiction separate from our colonial governments and they come up with their own legislation.
• For Quartering large armies among us.
• For protecting the military from the murders they commit against colonials.
• For refusing allow us to trade with anyone but England.
• For taxing us without our consent.
• For refusing our right to trial by jury.
• For transporting us to England for fake offenses.
• For abolishing another province's laws and creating arbitrary governance and enlarging it's boundaries so that the same can be done to the colonies.
• For removing colonial Charters and fundamentally changing forms of colonial governments.
• For suspending colonial legislatures, and giving the authority to England.
• He has abdicated government by refusing to protect the colonies and waging war against us.
• He plundered our ships, ravaged the coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed people's lives.
• He is transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to fight against us, and they are barbaric.
• He has taken our citizens prisoner on the high Seas to fight against us, and forces them to execute each other.
• He has created domestic insurrections among us, and is trying to get the Indians to attack us, who destroy without distinguishing between combatants and civilians.
• In every stage, we have tried to work things out with the King, and he insults us at every turn.  He is unfit to rule a free people, he is a tyrant.

We have also tried appealing to our fellow Britons, about the attempts at unwarrantable jurisdiction.

We tried reminding them why we came here to begin with, we appeal to their respect for the rule of law.  They, too, have been deaf to our pleas, and we hold them as enemies in war, but friends in peace.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the free USA do publish and declare our right to be free and independent States, absolved from allegiance to the crown and any political connection therein.  We have the right, as independent states, to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and everything else that nations do.  With a firm reliance on divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.