Source: Second Treatise on Civil Government, CHAP. XVII., John Locke

Sec. 197. AS conquest may be called a foreign usurpation, so usurpation is a kind of domestic conquest, with this difference, that an usurper can never have right on his side, it being no usurpation, but where one is got into the possession of what another has right to. This, so far as it is usurpation, is a change only of persons, but not of the forms and rules of the government: for if the usurper extend his power beyond what of right belonged to the lawful princes, or governors of the commonwealth, it is tyranny added to usurpation.

Source: Second Treatise on Civil Government, CHAP. XVIII., John Locke

Sec. 199. AS usurpation is the exercise of power, which another hath a right to; so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which no body can have a right to. And this is making use of the power any one has in his hands, not for the good of those who are under it, but for his own private separate advantage. When the governor, however intitled, makes not the law, but his will, the rule; and his commands and actions are not directed to the preservation of the properties of his people, but the satisfaction of his own ambition, revenge, covetousness, or any other irregular passion.

Source: Declaration of Independence [Excerpt]

. . . We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. . . .

. . . But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. . . .

. . . 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. . . .

He has refused . . .

He has forbidden . . .

He has refused . . .

He has called . . .

He has dissolved . . .

He has refused . . .

He has endeavoured . . .

He has obstructed . . .

He has made . . .

He has erected . . .

He has kept among us . . .

He has affected . . .

He has combined . . .

For Quartering . . .

For protecting . . .

For cutting off . . .

For imposing . . .

For depriving . . .

For transporting . . .

For abolishing . . .

For taking away . . .

For suspending . . .

He has abdicated . . .

He has plundered . . .

He is . . .transporting . . .

He has constrained . . .

He has excited . . .