A declaration seeking life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness_美文

A declaration seeking life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

It was America's Declaration of Independence.

Historian Gordon Wood at Brown University says the declaration sent a message to more than just the British.

"They're trying to, I think, to signal to the world, 'We are a new nation. We have broken away from this other nation. We're a separate nation and we want recognition of our independence.'"

The Declaration of Independence begins with these words:

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.

The declaration goes on to say:

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.

The British believed that the Americans were violating British law. Jefferson argued that the British treatment of the American colonies violated the natural laws of God.