[W]hen a long train of abuses and usurpations…
evinces a design to… absolute despotism
it is the… duty…to provide new guards for future security
The history of the present “King”… 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.
He has refused his assent to laws… the State remaining in the meantime exposed to…dangers … from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; 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….
He has made judges dependent on his will alone….
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people.
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 cutting…our trade with… parts of the world;
For taking away our… most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us
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.