Biomedical physics / PHZ 5705 /AP Government Required Foundational Document Study Sheet

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Document Summary/Main Ideas Important Quotes/Clause/Parts Declaration of Independence – July 4, 1776 by the 2nd Continental Congress (mostly Thomas Jefferson) ● Letter written to formally decla... re the 13 colonies independent from Britain ● Provides philosophical justification for the break from Great Britain ● Is a declaration of natural rights – stated government’s main job was to protect these rights; if it doesn’t change or “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 … 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. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government … … For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent … For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury … 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 … We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America … 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 …” [Show More]

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