 Prudence indeed will dictate that governments long-established should not be changed for light and transient causes. And accordingly all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to write themselves by abolishing the forms to which they're accustomed. What they're saying here is that people shouldn't and don't start revolutions whenever they're unhappy. They only do it when the problems are very serious, when they have tried by every possible means to resolve their grievances peacefully. When there are these serious causes, it's their right and their duty to throw off such a garment. I think it's important that they say, right, it is their right, it is their duty. They're not just doing this because they want to. They're doing it because the laws of nature compel them. And that's a persistent theme in the Declaration of Independent. Accessity compels us to do this. We don't want to do this. We're not choosing to do it because we're rabble rogers. We're doing it because the laws of nature tell us that we must do this, otherwise we will be the equivalent of slaves. Our liberty will be taken away from us. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. When the King becomes a tyrant, revolution is necessary to preserve the liberties of the people. To prove these, let facts be submitted to the candid world. That's a very good rhetorical device. Let the facts be submitted. So any objective observer given this list will understand why the colonies are starting this revolution, why they are declaring their independence, and they will side with us. It's interesting to look at the list in the Declaration that each sentence begins, he has, he has, he has. And who is the he? Well, the he is the King of England, King George III. What seems inexplicable at first is why the colonists blame all these on George III. It wasn't George III, at least initially, who single-handedly imposed taxes or deprived the colonists of trial by jury or quartered troops among the colonists. It was Parliament, but it was understood that the King gave his assent to laws of Parliament and that the King theoretically had the ultimate say in approving laws of Parliament. So if George III had wanted to veto any of these laws, at least theoretically he could have. There was no British monarch since the early 18th century had actually vetoed a law of Parliament, but the colonists believed that the King was their ultimate guardian and protector in Britain and that's who they appealed to ultimately for help and that's who they felt ultimately let them down. Also, you don't rebel against Parliament. You can only rebel when the King becomes a tyrant and when the King is no longer the protector or guardian of your liberties. They have to lay these issues at his feet in order for rebellion to be justified. So I think this list of grievances is interesting in its particulars and more generally because they blame all this stuff that previously might have been blamed on Parliament on the King. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. That is a reference to the fact that after the colonial legislatures approved a law, then it would go to the governor in that colony for approval, then it would be sent to England for approval and there are cases in which the Crown refused to pass certain laws that the colonists thought would be good for them. The colonists feel like Britain is coming between them and they're just right to representative government in their own colonies. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. That is a reference to the fact that after the colonial legislatures approved a law, then it would go to the governor in that colony for approval, then it would be sent to England for approval and there are cases in which the Crown refused to pass certain laws that the colonists thought would be good for them. The colonists feel like Britain is coming between them and they're just right to representative government in their own colonies. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. I think one of the things that really started to get to the colonists was the fact that the royal governors, whenever they were threatened because the assemblies were passing resolutions opposing British laws would then send the representatives home. They would dissolve the legislatures and the legislatures could not reconvene on their own merits. They would go down to a local tavern and reconvene in the name of the people but they didn't have the legal authority of the legitimate government, the royal government. And so the colonists increasingly felt that Britain was violating their right to representation in their own colonial legislatures. Suspending our legislatures that refers to the fact that in certain colonies the parliament prohibited the legislature from meeting that violated the people's basic right to elect representatives who would govern them. And then the Declaratory Act of 1766 which was passed in the wake of the repeal of the Stamp Act said that parliament had the right to pass laws governing the colonies in any case whatsoever and parliament intended that to apply to taxes. And the colonists said that no, they would agree to laws that parliament passed that were for the governance of the empire but they would not agree to pay any taxes that were not passed by their own representatives. Those in particular refer to this issue of no taxation without representation. The Anglo-American idea of taxes was that taxes are a gift of the people to the government and the government uses those taxes to preserve life, liberty and property for the security of the state, for the security of the people. The people can't be forced to give these taxes without their consent. That doesn't mean that the people meet personally to vote on taxes but through their representatives. So as long as they are electing representatives to an assembly then that assembly has the right to vote taxes and they are bound to pay those taxes even if they don't agree with the particular policies they can change the person who they elect. In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms and from the colonist point of view at every point since 1765 when they first became aware of what they perceived as change in British policy they took steps to let Britain know that they were upset. They did this by sending petitions to the King, to the House of Lords, to the House of Commons. They did this by passing resolutions in their colonial legislatures. They did this by boycotting British goods. They did this by gathering together in a Continental Congress and by passing resolutions as a united group. The government didn't listen, the people of Britain didn't listen. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marched by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.