The Declaration of Independence

>>Last night I was telling a friend how I wanted to write this month about the essential tenets of our nation’s founding without sounding like a frustrated history teacher. At one point I recited the preamble to the Constitution. “Impressive,” he said. “You know what’s sad? I don’t know the preamble by heart, but I can sing every word to the ‘Love Boat’ theme song.” Right. And I’d be the same had I not been so enamored of ‘Schoolhouse Rock.’

This would be an easy way to stage into a lament about how, since the dawn of mass communications, we have given too much power (and even responsibility) to the media for molding our worldview. But let’s leave that be for now and get back to basics. At the risk of boring everyone to death, I’m printing the Declaration of Independence. If you can spare a few moments to read it, think about the 56 men who understood that in signing it they were sentencing themselves, their families and their constituencies to death. Because it was necessary. And try this. Turn to page 30 and count how many of the signers’ names you recognize; I only knew 17. I blame it on ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ for not setting it to music.—Jon Anne

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776The Unanimous Declaration of theThirteen United States of America

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.

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.

Jon Anne Willow is Editor and Co-Publisher of Vital Source. She has been a freelance writer and editor for over 20 years, first published in Highlights magazine at the age of ten. So far, this is her only national writing credit.