Understanding the Declaration of Independence - 9 Key Concepts Everyone Should Know

hello my name is Craig cybert and I want to welcome you to the short web seminar on the Declaration of Independence nine key Concepts everyone should know and if you're an international listener we invite you to listen in as we take a look at this important United States founding document 90% of today's Americans have never heard what you're about to hear but in 1776 90% of Americans had a basic understanding of what you're about to hear th Jefferson said this the price of freedom is eternal vigilance and so we hope that this process of looking at the Declaration in more detail will spur us on to a new Revolution of Freedom as we understand this bounding document the nine key Concepts can be broken down into three more broad categories the first is understanding the basic structure of the Declaration second of all understanding the seven component parts within that basic structure and then thirdly understanding that the Declaration and US Constitution are designed to work together so let's first take a look at understanding the basic structure the total length of the Declaration of independ Independence is just under 1,400 words about 400 words spell out the essence of the principles and beliefs upon which the United States was founded these 400 keywords are split about equally between the opening and the closing of the document the other thousand words appear in the middle of the Declaration and outline over 25 abuses of King George III over a 10-year period And so you can see the significance of the weight of uh the introductory words the closing words where some key concepts are outlined and then these middle Words which there are thousand of them uh really outline the abuses of King George III so that's all in that's involved in understanding key concept number one is that there's these three broader categories that the Declaration breaks down into now let's take a look at the seven component part now as we look at the detail of these seven parts we find that four of them are included in introductory remarks the first is the reason for the Declaration and this is stated in the opening sentence when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the Earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of Nature's God entitle them a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separation and so this is the introductory remarks for why the Declaration is being written the second thing that's in that introductory um uh remarks and that that General category are the self-evident truths that many people are familiar with 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 among these are life liberty in the pursuit of happiness and in our Modern Age We confuse happiness with Hedonism and that is not what the found of this document had in mind their perspective of happiness in 1776 would have meant this that the individual would have the freedom to use their time talent and resources to pursue the directions in life that they believed would bring them the most satisfaction and would benefit their family friends fellow man and future Generations the most what's also interesting about this introductory paragraph is this in this short paragraph the founders also describe the purpose of government and they say this that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the sent of the go consent of the Govern and so in this short sentence they're basically saying the reason for government's existence is to secure those rights and then lastly in this introductory paragraph they give reasons for altering or abolishing a form of government and they say this that when any form of government becomes destructive of these ends that is preserving the self-evident truths that they had already named 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 affect their safety and happiness and so in this first paragraph the most important thing of the four we've just looked at are are the self-evident truths that we're created equal that we're endowed by our creator with unalienable rights and those rights among many would be life liberty and the pursuit of happiness these are four huge Concepts in this first couple of sentence the reason for the Declaration the self-evident truths the purpose of government and the abolishment of government and the reasons for it now now as I said before the middle section which is the big biggest section is the list of grievances against King George and there are over a thousand words in this section there were over 25 abuses that King George III uh had done over a 10-year period And in the Declaration the colonist made a list uh and suggested that that list was ample evidence that the Declaration was justified and here are just a few of them unfair taxation cutting off trade abolishing good and helpful laws making arbitrary laws himself creating new government departments with officials that harass the people depriving colonists of trial by jury protecting his own officials that were murderers attempting to establish military rule hiring mercenaries to harass and kill colonists capturing and forcing colonists to fight against their fellow colonist or be killed fostering domestic Uprising in the colonies and dis allowing or not hearing any appeals for justice and so those 25 abuses kind of fall into these General 12 categories and they're listed there in this middle section so the list of grievances is shown there now we move to the final section where the Declaration is actually stated and this is the statement we therefore the representatives of the United States of America and general Congress assembled appealing to the Supreme judge of the world for the restitute of our intentions do in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare that these United Colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states that's the Declaration statement after that statement the rights of these United sovereign states are listed and they include and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally disolved and that as free and independent states they have full power to Levy War conclude peace contract alliances and establish Commerce and to do all other acts and things which independent states May of right do now notice here that they title the state of Great Britain as what their Des resolving from and then they declare that the free and independent states of the United States have the rights and privileges of states and so the colonists did not view them dissolving 13 colonies into one national government but they viewed each of the states as sovereign states on the order of Great Britain France and other Global states that existed at that time and so it was literally the United States of America that they were doing United sovereign states that they were making a declaration for the seventh and last part in the last sentence is what I call the pledges and this is where they make a pledge to God and they say this and for the support of this declaration with a firm Reliance on the prot protection of Divine Providence so a pledge uh to God and seeking his protection and then a pledge to each other we mutually pledge to each other Our lives our fortunes and our sacred honor so in July in August of 1776 the signing of the Declaration took place July 4th John Hancock signed it a printed copy was drawn up it was announced to the people and on August 2nd uh the rest of the 56 signers signed the Declaration of Independence to make it official you can have a better understanding of the Declaration of Independence you now know more than 90% of Americans do about this document by simply reading the first 200 words and the last 200 words challenge others to do the same don't settle for Bland or manipulated history and then the last concept uh falls into the third and final category and that is to understand that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution work together together and you need to take advantage of watching the short web seminar and that concept that these two documents are designed to be interpreted together and can only fully be understood when it's done as we conclude there are some additional resources you may want to take advantage of after watching the YouTube videos on this playlist for more freedom videos check out july4th freedom.com for tools on growing in your faith check out the 21-day Faith experiment. org for complete worldview training that integrates faith and life check out biblical worldview training.org then finally to team up with other young professionals that are making a difference in the world check out priority associates.org my name is Craig cyber thank you for listening

Channel: USCivicsTraining

Views: 466,663

Keywords: Constitution, Freedom, Liberty, Founding Fathers, Bill of RIghts, July 4th, Key principles, American History, BostonTea Party, Civics, Good Citizenship

Id: cS-tshQ9sys

Length: 10min 44sec (644 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 16 2009