Four Parts of the Declaration

The Declaration

• is America’s Founding document

• establishes the ideals we as a nation strive to achieve

• declares our independence from Great Britain

• it does not magically create a perfectly just world

The Four Parts

1. origin of Americans and American Rights

   1. One People

   2. Laws of Nature and Nature’s God

   3. Our Creator

2. the American (Human) Rights

   1. Equality

   2. Life

   3. Liberty

   4. Property

   5. Pursuit of Happiness

   6. Consent

   7. Grievance

   8. Rebellion

3. how you, King George III, violated our Rights

   1. the list of grievances

4. what we are doing about it

   1. creating a new nation

   2. by force

   3. under pain of death

Part 4 is the most important part.

The Founders didn’t write a strongly worded letter then go back to regular life.

They put their lives on the line to change the relationship between government and the citizen.

The Declaration creates a new nation, founded in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

It DOES NOT magically make the United States of America perfect in 1776.

The Founders tell us the Rights ALL MEN are entitled to.

They tell us how how to make and keep a free people free.

They do the hard work, it’s our job to finish what they started.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

Go Army,

Kalian