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The Declaration of Independence Values Define Freedom.

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The Declaration of Independence values define the freedom people now enjoy.

The intent of the document was fairly straight forward; it was to announce their freedom from the tyranny of England, why it was being proclaimed, and to declare certain rights which should be free to all.

Written in 1776, a year after the Revolutionary War had started, the document was the formal declaration of separation from England.

Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of the document that the Second Continental Congress approved and signed on July 4, 1776.

Its most memorable words are perhaps the ones that opened the document.

“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.”

This sentence describes what the Declaration of Independence values- life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

In life, the people wanted to be able to pursue life as they saw fit and enjoy it without fear that the government will not allow them to.

In liberty, the people want to be able to have the freedom to live their lives without an overbearing authority like a king controlling them.

In the pursuit of happiness, the people wanted the right to do what they saw fit to do; the wanted to be able to do whatever it took to be happy.

Monarchies saw fit to control everything the people did; it was the nature of that type of government to make all the decisions for the people from what they did for a living to what they were allowed to do for fun.

In this new nation, happiness would be up to the person and not something the government had any control over.

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All Men are Created Equal

Included amongst the Declaration of Independence values is that all men are created equal.

This phrase was used in direct contradiction to the dominant political theory of the day in 1776, the divine right of kings.

Countries the world over were controlled by the whim of a king; someone deemed better than the rest of the nation simply due to birth.

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Unalienable Rights

This phrase ushered in a new frame of thought; king, pheasant, soldier, or farmer- all are equal and seen as the same in the eyes of the government.

Besides declaring freedom from British rule and defining the reasons why, the Declaration of Independence values rights that were considered unalienable.

Simply put, there were certain things that should not be granted to the people by the government.

Just as people of the same world, we should all have certain rights that no one can take away from us- unalienable rights.

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