The declaration of the universal right of free statehood is not only made in the statement that "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." It is asserted with much more clearness in the concluding part of the Declaration, which reads:
"We, therefore,... declare that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states,... and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
In the first draft of the concluding part of the Declaration, Jefferson wrote:
"We, therefore,... utterly dissolve and break off all political connection which may have heretofore subsisted between us and the people or Parliament of Great Britain, and finally we do assert and declare these Colonies to be free and independent states."
The resolution of the Virginia Convention of May 15, 1776, which was the basis of the Declaration, read:
"That the delegates ... be instructed to propose to [the Continental Congress] to declare the United Colonies free and independent states, absolved from all ... dependence upon the Crown or Parliament of Great Britain."
A comparison of the words used by the Congress with those used by the Virginia Convention and those used by Jefferson in the first draft, shows how much the judgment of the Congress was clarified by the great debate which occurred between May 15 and June 10, 1776, when the wording above quoted was agreed upon.
The wording of the Virginia resolution, if it had been adopted, would have implied that the Colonies had theretofore been "dependent upon the Crown and Parliament of Great Britain," and that their statehood, their free statehood, and their independent statehood came into existence by virtue of their declaring themselves free and independent states.
The wording of Jefferson's first draft, if it had been adopted, would have implied that a "political connection" might or might not have theretofore existed between the American people and "the people or Parliament of Great Britain," and that if such a political connection had existed, the American people had the right to secede from it, whenever they considered that the terms of the connection were not observed by the people or Parliament of Great Britain, and that by such act of secession, and by their Declaration, their rights of statehood, of free statehood and of independent statehood came into existence.
The wording of the Declaration which was actually adopted implied that the Colonies had always been free states or free and independent states, and that, by the Declaration, at most their right of independent statehood came into existence, that they had theretofore at all times been in political connection, either as free states under the law of nature and of nations, or as free and independent states by implied treaty, with the free and independent state of Great Britain, that the dissolution of the connection had not come about by an act of secession on their part, but was due to the violation, by the State of Great Britain, either of the law of nature and of nations, or of the implied treaty on which the political connection was based.