History of The Declaration of Independence

894 Words2 Pages

The four main parts of the Declaration of Independence are: the Preamble, the Declaration of Natural Rights, List of Grievances, and Resolution of independence by the united States. The purpose of the Preamble was to kindly state that nature itself calls for separation of people from their country, and that in many times through out history, ties will be broken, and new ones shall be formed. The purpose of the Declaration of Natural Rights is to explain that people have certain inalienable rights which governments should protect. As for the List of Grievances the purpose was to provide proof to all those who read the Declaration, that King George III was a tyrant, and he abused his power towards his own people, and denied their rights. The purpose of the Resolution of independence by the united States was to formally state that the colonies were now their own states, and independent of the British rule. The authors of the Declaration had seen through both examinations of past events, and by reviewing the current events, that peace with Britain was unattainable. In the years before the Declaration had been written up, efforts at peace had been made by many famous writers, as well as smaller political groups amongst the colonies. Every time a petition for reform or reconciliation would be sent to the King, it was usually mocked by him, or ignored. At the end, the colonists realized that their only option was to become independent of Britain. To state their independence and show which ground their decision had been made on, was clearly shown by the Declaration of Independence. Enlightenment ideas can be seen as early in the document as the Preamble. Deism was a religious idea that came more so into general acceptance durin... ... middle of paper ... ...em first, but he did not care about even responding to pending laws after some time. After the Declaration of Independence was signed the colonies felt like they had written down what they needed to in order to declare themselves independent states from Britain. While not calling themselves a unified country, they did know that on their side, the tie was formally broken between them and Britain. Due to this Britain obviously saw this as treason in all lights, and sent troops, and fleets over to combat this “revolution.” This Declaration paved way for a new country to be formed, which would obviously later become the United States of America. The whole idea of now being separate from Britain gave the colonists a sense of “nationalism”(if you could call it that because they are still separate states) that they are no longer tied to the “shackles” of Great Britain.

Open Document