Declaration of Independance

If you have never read the Declaration of Independance, You should.

I spent 10 years in the military, took many classes in American and World History, but yet had never actually sat down and read the Declaration.

After reading it, along with the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution, my conclusion is that everyone should be made to read them. All citizens should read and understand the most basic freedoms of America.

Here are the first few paragraphs of the Declaration. Read them, and remember the men that signed it, and were willing to lay down their lives to defend their decision.

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen 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 abolish it, and to institute a 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.
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http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence