The Declaration of Independence is perhaps the most momentous single document in American history, and maybe even in the history of Western Civilization.  In July of 1776, after long deliberation by a group of remarkable men, they laid out the many reasons for the decision to separate the thirteen colonies from Great Britain, and by doing so, launched the Greatest Nation on God’s Green Earth.  They enumerated first, the conditions which they saw for the government of Free People.

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.