How The Declaration Of Independence Changed The World

The Enlightenment



Britain's vast army was already on its way towards New York Harbor when Jefferson sat down to compose the Declaration in June of 1776, beginning:


"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 ideas Jefferson expressed, which justified the reasons for revolt with a list of charges against the British king, weren't original. A number of global texts written during the highly charged Enlightenment years of the 17th and 18th centuries included similar ideals about liberty and the right to self-determination, and Americans throughout the colonies were already promoting the progressive worldview in newspapers and schoolbooks.


It was the fiery political climate into which the Declaration was born that made Jefferson's words so important. When his final draft was edited and adopted by Congress on July 4th, the statement signified independence, but it also solidified the path to all-out war, and not just in the new United States.