today we're looking at the declaration of independence
hello welcome to the daily bell ringer please don't forget to subscribe and take a look at
the questions down in the description so in my previous episode of the daily bell ringer
i covered the writing of the declaration of independence and how thomas jefferson
along with the committee of five drafted the document and then got its approval from the
continental congress on july 4th of 1776. i do have a few other bell ringers that also cover
some of the history of the document itself and in the description i'll include a link
to a copy of the text from the declaration but today what i want to cover is what does
the declaration itself actually say what are the written words in the declaration of independence
when writing the declaration of independence thomas jefferson did recognize the historic
significance of the document i mean this was a group of colonies challenging the authority of
arguably the most powerful nation in the world at the time the british so he was well aware that a
lot of people would be reading his words so he needed to come up with a good introduction or
preamble to get the reader's attention and set the foundation for the rest of the document so
what i'd like to do is break down the preamble and discuss some of the key parts of it
when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political
bans which have connected them with one 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 so basically what jefferson is saying here is we are breaking up almost like
a boyfriend and girlfriend would break up the american colonies believed it was time to break
away from britain and become a nation of their own that deserves equal standing in the world then
jefferson goes on to say now i'm going to tell you why we are going to break up or break away
now we get to arguably the most famous line from the declaration of independence 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
truths that are self-evident basically means it's obvious that all men are created equal of course
here is the great hypocrisy of the declaration slavery still existed and was allowed to continue
in fact most of the members of the continental congress own slaves
jefferson himself was a slave owner of course later in the document jefferson does criticize
the institution of slavery but still that doesn't get rid of the fact that here we're stating
that everyone was equal yet the nation was not willing to treat everyone equally and of course
this is an issue that is still not resolved even to this day likewise equal rights were
not extended to women either so this is really something that you really have to think about
here with this statement but despite the double standards of the beginning of the statement
the next passage is truly profound that we are endowed or in other words given by their creator
certain unalienable rights unalienable just means that it cannot be taken away
now why is this statement so profound jefferson was saying that by virtue of simply being human
we are given rights and our rights do not come from a king or an elected body of representatives
that our rights do not come from a government rather they come from a creator or a higher
power than anything here on earth so that means no one here on earth can take away those rights
then he goes on to say that among these are life liberty and the pursuit of happiness now really
what jefferson did here was kind of do a copy and paste he he copied some lines from a political
theorist named john locke who had written all people have the right to life liberty and property
jefferson just tweaked it a little to fit the declaration and make it it's make it his own
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 new government
jefferson now stresses that the role of government is to make sure the rights of the people
are protected then he makes another profound statement stating that the government's power
comes from the people it's not you know a monarchy or natural right of the government to have power
the government must have the people's consent to have its power then he goes on to say that
if a government is not protecting the rights of the people then the people have the right to rebel
and make a new government basically what the colonists were arguing you know saying that
the british were not protecting or respecting their rights so they had a right to create their
own new nation now unfortunately i'm not going to have time to cover the entire document in
this bell ringer but the remainder of the document is basically just a laundry list
of complaints against the king and parliament what i would encourage you to do is look at the link
in the description to the declarations text and see how many of the complaints you can match up
with laws that were passed before the revolution so look back at these sugar stamp townshian and
intolerable acts and then look at the you know the statements in the declaration and matching
up with laws that were passed in those acts then look at the statement of independence at the
end of the document where jefferson clearly states that the colonies are now officially
broken away from britain so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching