We reprint below the Declaration of Independence, signed 229 years ago today. Read it out loud, as holiday picnickers did at the turn of the last century. Visit any bookstore and you'll note a renewed interest in our nation's founding fathers. But we don't appreciate the genius of their vision, in our nation's founding texts, often enough. At a time when places like Afghanistan, Iraq and even the European Union are struggling to commit a societal mission statement to paper, we think it's especially appropriate to admire the enduring vitality of the founding document of the United States.
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Founding Document
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday July 06, 2005 Home Edition California Part B Page 12 Editorial Pages Desk 1 inches; 40 words Type of Material: Correction
Declaration of Independence -- An editorial Monday said the Declaration of Independence was signed July 4, 1776. It was ratified on that day by the Continental Congress, but was signed Aug. 2 after being printed and circulated to the colonies.
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In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous declaration of the 13 United States of America.
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.
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, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. 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.
