By far the most renowned statement of the noble rights of liberty was the Declaration of Independence. At the time, people were most interested in the classified indictment of the king of Great Britain for interfering with American liberty. The world, however, has long agreed that the big memorable, permanent thing in that Declaration is found in the three magnificent sentences that fulfill the injunction of the Liberty Bell, to “proclaim liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof.” Those imperishable sentences are: “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.”
ORIGINAL INDEPENDENCE HALL
INDEPENDENCE HALL TODAY
Chestnut Street front
THE LIBERTY BELL
After all, anyone who can think like Franklin and write like Jefferson could draw up a Declaration of Independence; but somebody had to fight like Washington, in order to demonstrate that a democratic country, resting on principles of liberty, could (with never-to-be-forgotten aid from the French) achieve its own freedom. The lesson of liberty was deeply learned in France, where the early French Revolution of 1789 basked in the sunshine of American freedom.
