The Declaration of Independence

 The Declaration of Independence

    A couple years ago, I visited Washington DC over break, and while at either Congress or the Supreme Court (I forget which), my parents offered to buy me a souvenir. Nothing at the gift shop stood out to me, but it felt like a wasted opportunity if I didn’t buy anything, so I picked a  copy of the Declaration of Independence. However, I never actually read it, and the book has been sitting on a random shelf, forgotten about for quite some time. I found the book recently, and figured I’d read it, since it was really short.

    In essence, the Declaration of Independence is a list of complaints the colonies had against the British government and monarchy which compelled them to declare independence. The document explains that all men have fundamental rights, famously including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and governments are created among the people to secure those rights. Therefore, when a government acts in a way that goes against those goals, the people have a right to replace that government for a new one.

    The subsequent section of the document lists a bunch of grievances the colonies had against the king which lead them to declare independence. Broadly, they disliked the king’s actions that obstruct, control, or weaken the colonial legislature, such as calling the legislature to distant places, dissolving the legislature for going against his wishes, and refusing to pass beneficial laws unless the people gave up on their right to representation. They also disliked many of his other policies, such as protecting soldiers from punishment from crimes they committed, imposing taxes without consent, and controlling judges. The third main category addresses the king’s actions against the colonies, such as waging war on them, burning towns, plundering seas, and bringing mercenaries to commit terrible acts.

    The last section defends the actions of the legislature, maintaining that they acted reasonably and sought change peacefully, but had to declare independence as their efforts were ignored. The document concludes by declaring America’s independence and establishing its rights as a sovereign country.

    Reading through the document, one of the things I found most interesting was how words were capitalized in ways that didn’t conform to grammatical rules. Even in the first line, words such as “Course,” “Laws,” and “Nature” are capitalized even though they’re in the middle of the sentence. I think this is done to emphasize certain points, similar to some of the manifestos.

Jaehyun