Thomas Jefferson
July 4, 2023
[This is the most sacred political document ever written. The most patriotic thing you can do today is to read America’s founding document, enunciating the most moral principles for the creation of any government in the history of humanity – to read it aloud to yourself, to your family, to your friends, and let the words sink deeply into your soul and theirs.
The following text is a transcription of the Stone Engraving of the parchment Declaration of Independence on display in the Rotunda at the National Archives Museum. The spelling and punctuation reflects the original.]
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 to abolish it, and to institute 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.
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