[Illustration:  From an old print

THOMAS JEFFERSON READING HIS DRAFT OF THE DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE TO THE COMMITTEE OF CONGRESS]

=Independence Declared.=—­The way was fully prepared, therefore, when, on June 7, the Virginia delegation in the Congress moved that “these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states.”  A committee was immediately appointed to draft a formal document setting forth the reasons for the act, and on July 2 all the states save New York went on record in favor of severing their political connection with Great Britain.  Two days later, July 4, Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence, changed in some slight particulars, was adopted.  The old bell in Independence Hall, as it is now known, rang out the glad tidings; couriers swiftly carried the news to the uttermost hamlet and farm.  A new nation announced its will to have a place among the powers of the world.

To some documents is given immortality.  The Declaration of Independence is one of them.  American patriotism is forever associated with it; but patriotism alone does not make it immortal.  Neither does the vigor of its language or the severity of its indictment give it a secure place in the records of time.  The secret of its greatness lies in the simple fact that it is one of the memorable landmarks in the history of a political ideal which for three centuries has been taking form and spreading throughout the earth, challenging kings and potentates, shaking down thrones and aristocracies, breaking the armies of irresponsible power on battle fields as far apart as Marston Moor and Chateau-Thierry.  That ideal, now so familiar, then so novel, is summed up in the simple sentence:  “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Written in a “decent respect for the opinions of mankind,” to set forth the causes which impelled the American colonists to separate from Britain, the Declaration contained a long list of “abuses and usurpations” which had induced them to throw off the government of King George.  That section of the Declaration has passed into “ancient” history and is seldom read.  It is the part laying down a new basis for government and giving a new dignity to the common man that has become a household phrase in the Old World as in the New.

In the more enduring passages there are four fundamental ideas which, from the standpoint of the old system of government, were the essence of revolution:  (1) all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; (2) the purpose of government is to secure these rights; (3) governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; (4) whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute new government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.  Here was the prelude to the historic drama of democracy—­a challenge to every form of government and every privilege not founded on popular assent.