In lesson one we learned the founders believed that all people are born with the same basic human rights and that these rights come directly from God, not some monarch. We also learned how bold and new this concept was at the time, flying in the face of King George III’s imperial rule from across the Atlantic. Today we’ll learn what they believed should be done if these basic rights are not recognized. The Declaration reads as follows:
—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
The first portion of this statement completely disavows the validity of King George’s monarchy. This belief is at the core of our “Great American Experiment”, that government gets its power from the people it governs, not by some divine right bestowed upon some king. This was completely unheard of in the 18th century. It simply wasn’t done anywhere in the “developed” world.
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,…
Here, a fourth right is spelled out. In addition to the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is the right of any people to throw off a government that violates these basic human rights and create a new one that better serves their needs/interests. The founders do put a caveat on this:
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