Texatdurango said:
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and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, (meaning some rights come from God - not from governement)…
Actually, that isn't what it means. It means that they are rights that man cannot be separated from, given away, or taken away. They recognized that "all" rights come from our creator. And, any rights/authority possessed by the government is by consent of the people. We are born with these rights, and they were simply stating a selection of some of the inalienable ones ("among them…").
Actually that is exactly what it means - every one of the delegates - understood all of the several terms ( "natures God" and Devine Providence") being two two others referring to God as referring to God.
The meaning is that certain rights come from a higher authority than Government. What governments give governments can take away so unalienable rights MUST come from somewhere else.
And yet, nearly 20% of the population was denied those unalienable rights.
For everything they had right, there was a lot that they also had wrong.
I remember this day as the birth of an imperfect nation. One that continues to grow and evolve. One that can be the greatest country ONLY if we put in the efforts to make it so.
The declaration is the recipe - that the implementation was less than perfect - does not make the recipe wrong ... it makes men imperfect, which I think most of us will readily acknowledge.
The constitution is a practical document - designed to secure as many of those rights to as many people as they could. But it was written 13 years after the declaration and after about 8 years of operating under the Articles of Confederation which was not a true republic. They did a heck of a good job. Most republics have not lasted nearly as long as we have.
People of the world who have wanted to leave where they were, didn't want to come to this country in greater numbers than they wanted to go anywhere else because this was bad country. Perhaps not perfect but better to more people than anyplace else.
From my observations, this belief is fomented much like the typical criticisms I often see of Christianity. That is, "Lack of understanding and knowledge." How many people here are actually calling what Smitty posted in his original post, "The Declaration of Independence", when it's actually is not the DOI, but merely the preamble to the DOI? How many people who went to public school actually did study the DOI? I remember showing the DOI to my mother (Masters in Education), only to see/hear her dismay by stating, "But ghostrider, they're doing many of those things right now." It is now without merit to say that our forefathers started a violent revolution over much less that what we now experience. People think the know and understand the documents, but are basing that belief/knowledge on what they've been told or heard, rather than the actual document.
It ia in fact the first part of The Declaration, it states the justification --- the authority as it were ---- for declaring independence and justifying revolution.
As you mention below it is followed by an indictment showing where King George and Parlement had violated the principles layed down in what you are incorrectly referring to as a preamble. Under British Law almost all of the things they listed in the "indictment" against King George were perfectly legal actions. It was only by invoking the higher authority for their rights and that ligitimate government power came from the concent of the governed that they could claim their rights were violated.
That is at the core of what Gary touched upon, except it isn't the DOI that is, "…Philosophy behind our system of representative, democratic government." For one thing, it isn't a democratic government. As a reader of the FP, and AFP he would know that one of them differentiates the difference between a democracy, and the republic we have. Furthermore, The DOI is a document that itemizes the grievances that the colonists had against the king. It reads like a court document outlining the transgressions of the defendant, and I don't think that's what he actually meant by calling it the, "…philosophy…government…"
This may well sound "nitpicky", but that's how it happens. I know that for years I believed the preamble to be that actually document, until I in fact read it and discovered differently.
What you are calling the preamble is in fact the most important part of the document....it states why, what King George is, later in the document,accused of warrants revolution to overthrow the government and institute a new one. That is hardly "preamble". The reason most people think that the first part is the declaration is because it is - it is by far the most important part of the document and that is the reason it is the part most often referred to when people refer to the declaration.
