Essay - Declaration of Independence. What Does the Declaration of Independence Actually...

Declaration of independence.

***** does the Declaration of Independence actually argue for?

The Declaration ***** Independence is such a frequently quoted document from American Revolutionary history it is easy to forget what th***** list of grievances from the colonists to the British powers ***** delineated, in terms of its argument. The Declaration argues for a Lockean, contractual agreement between a Sovereign and the people that can be dissolved if the Sovereign does not honor his obligations ***** protect and ********** to ***** popular will, and *****stead only serves his own self-interest. In this case, the ***** argues that George III merely ***** the interests ***** the mo*****r country, not the colonists, thus revolution is justified.

The Declaration of Independence is not a legal document in ***** sense ***** its words are Ameri***** law today. Its ********** ***** hinge upon the idea that all human beings have a basic right to chose a governing authority that protects *****m, rather than ignores or harms them. When the implied ***** between a Sovereign and a populace ***** broached, the governed ***** a right to declare *****ir independence from the king, as *****y are getting nothing back from the contractual relationship. The purpose of the existence ***** a higher governing ***** is not merely to stand with divine authority, but to protect the *****s of the governed, and when the state destroys ***** than ***** ***** rights of the people through unfair taxation and not allowing the people's voice to be heard in Parliament, then d*****solving the implied contract is the only recourse.

Most ***** the document is a l*****t of ***** British Sovereign's abuses such as his dissolving legislative assemblies that voiced the colonies' complains, ***** as the quartering of troops, the impressments of American civilians in British service, ***** other economically and personally exploitative practices. Thus, the colonists *****d ***** since they had attempted ***** be *****, according to the recourses offered to ********** by British law, ***** were ignored, ***** had no other recourse but to secede.

The document does not delineate the new principles of an emerging nation, but appeals to ***** general principles of free government that the later Constitution was to be based upon. Perhaps, rather th***** its affirmation of life, liberty ***** the pursuit ***** happiness, the words that best encapsulate its argument are ***** "prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils ***** 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 ***** their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security." Security of rights, specific*****y the rights of the White, propertied colonial elites ***** wrote ***** *****, more than life, liberty,