On June 8, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to write a declaration of independence. It named a committee to do the writing. One of its members was Thomas Jefferson, a lawyer from Virginia. He had been a leader in Virginia, and Virginia had elected him to the Continental Congress. The others on the committee were too busy with the revolution to work on the declaration, so Jefferson wrote it alone. He finished the document in a week. Congress made some changes to it. On July 2, Congress voted to declare independence. And on July 4, it approved the Declaration of Independence.
The declaration opens by saying declaring independence is a serious step. It requires Americans to explain why they are taking this step. The introduction also refers to the laws of nature and nature’s God. The declaration is based on the belief that all people have natural rights.
Here are the exact words of the introduction:
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. The second part of the declaration is the most famous. It argues that people have the right to change a government when it abuses their rights. This part sets out important ideas about government. It says that “all men are created equal.” And they have “unalienable rights,” rights that no one may take away. These rights are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It says that governments are set up to protect these rights. And that governments get “their just powers from the consent of the governed.” In other words, the people run the government. The goal of government should be to guard everyone’s freedom. The purpose of government is not to serve the rulers. It is to serve the people and uphold their rights.
This part of the declaration closes by saying that overthrowing a government is a serious matter. It should only be done for serious reasons. But when people have endured many abuses for a long time, it is their duty to overthrow the government and set up a better one. The colonists find themselves in this situation. The British king has repeatedly inflicted injuries on the American colonists.
Here are the exact words of the second part:
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. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 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. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. 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. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
