The Importance Of Equality To The Declaration Of Independence

“There are no greater tyranny than that is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice” -The Montesquieu, “The Spirit of the Laws”. When America was forming in the colonial era, there was much injustice and confusion due to the difference of beliefs and truths in that society. The Declaration of Independence shows all the injustices of King George the 3rd, the King of Britain in 1776. This freedom document explains the injustices of the court system in the colonies against the British soldiers who murdered innocents without punishment. In The Crucible, a girl named Abigail, is accused of being a witch by the town because she and a friend, Betty, were dancing and singing around a fire in the woods, late at night. Her father has to choose who to believe, his daughter or the rest of the town who want to persecute the witch. In The Scarlet Letter, the main character, Hester Prynne, is guilty of adultery with a married man. This shows injustice because she was the only one to be punished in that relationship. All of these instances show how confused America was in the colonial era through injustices. The Declaration of Independence is a great document to prove that there was much injustice in America.

In comparing Thomas Jefferson’s Letter to the Danbury Baptists, The Declaration of Independence, and U.S. Constitution, it is evident that the basis of all three documents is the idea that all human beings possess God-given fundamental rights and that government is created to protect those rights. The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson in 1776, is the first of the three documents penned. This is important because it defined the rights of liberty and equality of all American citizens as outlined in John Locke’s natural law thesis (Martin, page 113). In addition to providing an itemized account of the grievances colonist’s held against King George III of England, it served to justify the colonist’s quest for independence and separation from British rule. The Declaration of Independence conveyed to the crown that "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, which among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The Founders’ of the New World understood that their pursuit of liberties and autonomy specified in the Declaration of Independence could not come to fruition without instituting decrees. In 1787, the U.S. Constitution, was written to replace the Articles of Confederation with a better defined series of stringent laws that would legally uphold the freedoms and privileges established in the Declaration of Independence. The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights in

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers of the United States, explains to his readers why the colonies chose to abolish Great Britain’s government. His goal is to inform the readers that the government has certain responsibilities to the governed and that the British failed to adhere to its responsibilities to its colonists. His second goal is to justify their actions by explaining why it was not considered treason. By establishing his credibility and appealing to ethos, pathos and logos, Jefferson successfully wrote an informative, impactful, and inspirational document.

Our American government became independent from Great Britain, on July 4, 1776. There was a committee of five people who wrote the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration has a structure of an introduction, a statement of ideals about government, a long list of grievances against the British, and a Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. Yet the four ideals; consent of governed, Equality, Unalienable Rights, and the right to alter or abolish, are the foundation of our government. Equality is the most important and the reason our government is so successful to this day.

On June of 1776, the Declaration of Independence was born. Drawn up by Thomas Jefferson and based on the works of John Locke, the general purpose of the document was to clarify that governments have conditional, not absolute authority over the people; that human beings possess natural rights that can’t be taken from them and government is created to protect those rights. The phrases “unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and “all men are created equal” were the main theme of the social contract written for the small colonies of what would be the basis of the United States of America to declare independence from Great Britain and its tyrannical king. However, “unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and “all men are created equal” did not apply to African Americans, enslaved or free for the coming years.

There is no such thing as an ideal government. Every form of government has its flaws and strengths. In 1776 the Declaration of Independence was signed by our founding fathers, which declared independence from Britain. Thomas Jefferson, the founding father who wrote the declaration, had a set point of view of government and wanted to perfect it as much as possible. It was not all about government and its power to him. Jefferson believed that the people had rights over the government and that having a form of government was a necessity to prevent tyranny.

This leads to the Declaration of Independence which was adopted July 4, 1776. This document was meant as a self-esteem boost for the new Americans; giving them inalienable rights. “The most important statement in the declaration is the human rights, where the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are extolled” (Gaynor). “He [Thomas Jefferson] wrote: "... it was intended to be an expression of the American mind" (Early America). Jefferson meant that the American people wanted freedom from high taxes and the big government in England.

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” - The Declaration of Independence

Egalitarian is the belief in the equality of all people, especially in political, economic, or social life. (Dictionary.com, 2011) As the Declaration of Independence suggests, every man in America does start out with rights like any other man. What they do with these unalienable rights, though, is what determines their social, financial, and political prominence later in life. America allows the freedom for people to get ahead by creating their own opportunities, and by creating an equal platform of education to jump off of.

The Declaration of Independence, completed and signed in July of 1776, marked the official separation between the 13 colonies and Great Britain. An armed struggle between the colonies and Britain had begun just over a year before, with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. The formal declaration of independence established the new American revolutionary government and officially declared war against Great Britain. The primary purpose of the declaration was to assist the Second Continental Congress in obtaining aid from foreign countries. The document also clearly outlines the history of abuses the colonists had suffered under British rule since the end of the French

Jefferson began the document by explaining that the rights of the Americans had been brutally molested by the unjust King of Britain. Following this accusation, he provided evidence of this abuse by listing not just a mere handful, but 27 grievances that the King had inflicted against the colonies. Lastly, the conclusion of this article publishes and declares that the United Colonies have the right to be freed from the British and that they have the right to govern themselves as any free country does. The strategic organization of the Declaration of Independence allowed the colonies to be powerfully represented by such a clear and prudently worded

When looking at the Declaration of Independence and the justifications which Jefferson used in order to encourage the dissolve of the ties between the United Colonies and Great Britain, it becomes apparent how much of the theories of John Locke that Jefferson used as the basis for his argument. Focusing particularly on the second paragraph of the Declaration, the arguments for the equality of each man and the formation and destruction of governments come almost directly from Locke's Second Treatise of Government. The other arguments in the Declaration of Independence deal primarily with each citizen's rights and the natural freedoms of all men, two areas that Locke also spent

One of the most famous quote people remember from the Declaration of Independence was, “ We hold these truths to be self- evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ Adams persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document, which Congress then would edit to create the final version. The Declaration was an explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare

In the eighteenth century, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence which states the Colonies' emancipation from its motherland, England. Jefferson's famous quote derived from the Declaration, "... held certain 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" (Jefferson) is considered as the foundation of the American Dream. As mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed," (Jefferson). The government was formed to protect the rights of people and that its power comes from the citizens themselves. Jefferson's vision of the American Dream consists of a democratic government that has the ability to adapt to and meet the needs of the people's will and wishes as well as equality amongst all.

The American people had taken the unbelievable step of Declaring Independence from Great Britain and of forming a new nation, the Declaration's universal message of equality spoke not only to the founding fathers' generation but also to future generations and peoples around the world struggling to throw off oppression. Its words inspired Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the abolitionist movement against slavery, women seeking the vote, Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream” speech, the shipyard workers of Gdansk, protesters in the streets of Prague opposed to the Soviet Union, and Chinese students confronting communist tanks in Tiananmen Square.