Which principle of government is proposed in the declaration of independence

By the eve of the Revolution, universal human equality was a common American idea. Inalienable rights are rights that we are unable to give up, even if we want to. According to the concept of inalienable rights found in the Declaration of Independence, liberty is such a right. That means that if we signed a contract to be a slave, we would not have an obligation to keep it; and despite the contract, no one would have a right to our services. Having rights that are inalienable does not mean they cannot be attacked by our being arbitrarily killed, imprisoned, or otherwise oppressed.

It means that such acts are not morally justified and that we have a ground for moral complaint. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Without them we lose our humanity. With no inherent right to life and liberty, we would be in the same position as ordinary animals such as cattle or sheep. Human beings are different: our right not to be treated like an animal is part of our very nature that we are powerless to change.

We are unable to change our nature, and so we are unable to rid ourselves of certain of our essential qualities, such as the capacity to make moral choices. To answer this, we should bear in mind that in writing the Declaration, Jefferson said he was not attempting to put forth an original philosophy of his own.

As therefore the highest perfection of intellectual nature lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness, so the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happiness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty.

The stronger [the] ties we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general…the more are we free from [obedience to an immediate impulse for some pleasure]. Every day we make numerous choices in deciding what course of action will add to our well-being—what will make us happy.

Making these choices is the pursuit of happiness. The results of our choices are not all equal: we soon discover that choosing some pleasures, especially following momentary impulses, leads not to happiness but to pain.

But if we use our faculty of foresight, recalling past experience, we learn to postpone immediate gratification and see what choices are really in our interest.

Thus, learning self-control based on experience is essential to happiness. Pursuing happiness as an inalienable right. Accordingly, our right to make these choices is inalienable, and, unless our actions attack the rights of others, it is wrong for government to interfere. Private happiness, public happiness, and moral goodness. Locke, Jefferson, and others learned from ancient philosophers, especially Aristotle, that these choices have ethical or moral dimensions: those without moral virtue cannot be happy.

From the Preamble to the U. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice , insure domestic tranquility , provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare , and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Justice refers generally to fairness. The meaning of justice has been contested for more than 2, years of human history and remains contested today. The concept of justice has long been divided into three types: distributive justice, procedural justice, and corrective justice. Distributive justice. Distributive justice refers to the fairness of the distribution of benefits and burdens among persons or groups in society. Benefits may be such things as pay for work or the right to speak or vote.

They may include almost anything that can be distributed among a group of people that would be considered useful or desirable, such as praise, awards, opportunities for education, jobs, membership in organizations, or money.

Burdens may include obligations, such as homework or chores, working to earn money, paying taxes, serving on juries, or caring for another person. They may include almost anything that can be distributed among a group of people that would be considered undesirable, such as blame or punishment for wrongdoing. Issues and controversies over the fair distribution of benefits and burdens in society are very common and often highly contested, such as debates over health care benefits and taxes.

Phrases in the Constitution that are designed to promote distributive justice include:. Article IV. Section 2. Amendment XIV. Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Amendment XV. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Amendment XIX. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Thomas Jefferson was the principal drafter of the Declaration and James Madison of the Bill of Rights; Madison, along with Gouverneur Morris and James Wilson, was also one of the principal architects of the Constitution. Most importantly, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are based on the idea that all people have certain fundamental rights that governments are created to protect.

Those rights include common law rights, which come from British sources like the Magna Carta, or natural rights, which, the Founders believed, came from God. The Founders believed that natural rights are inherent in all people by virtue of their being human and that certain of these rights are unalienable, meaning they cannot be surrendered to government under any circumstances.

At the same time, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are different kinds of documents with different purposes. The Declaration was designed to justify breaking away from a government; the Constitution and Bill of Rights were designed to establish a government. The Declaration stands on its own—it has never been amended—while the Constitution has been amended 27 times.

The first ten amendments are called the Bill of Rights. The Declaration and Bill of Rights set limitations on government; the Constitution was designed both to create an energetic government and also to constrain it. Despite these similarities and differences, the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights are, in many ways, fused together in the minds of Americans, because they represent what is best about America. They are symbols of the liberty that allows us to achieve success and of the equality that ensures that we are all equal in the eyes of the law.

In other words, the fundamental freedoms of the American people were alluded to in the Declaration of Independence, implicit in the Constitution, and enumerated in the Bill of Rights. When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in , it was far from clear that the delegates would pass a resolution to separate from Great Britain. To persuade them, someone needed to articulate why the Americans were breaking away. Although Jefferson disputed his account, John Adams later recalled that he had persuaded Jefferson to write the draft because Jefferson had the fewest enemies in Congress and was the best writer.

Jefferson would have gotten the job anyway—he was elected chair of the committee. Jefferson had 17 days to produce the document and reportedly wrote a draft in a day or two. The Declaration of Independence has three parts. It has a preamble, which later became the most famous part of the document but at the time was largely ignored.

The preamble to the Declaration of Independence contains the entire theory of American government in a single, inspiring passage:. 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. When Jefferson wrote the preamble, it was largely an afterthought. Why is it so important today? It captured perfectly the essence of the ideals that would eventually define the United States.

How could Jefferson write this at a time that he and other Founders who signed the Declaration owned slaves? The Bill of Rights Institute engages, educates, and empowers individuals with a passion for the freedom and opportunity that exist in a free society.

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. 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. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.

We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.

They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. Back to Main Declaration Page.