What the Declaration of Independence Means to Me

FIRST PERSON | Every U.S. citizen is introduced to the Declaration of Independence at some point in elementary school. For me, the time came during third grade history class. My teacher had each and every one of the students read a short excerpt from the famous document aloud to the rest of the class, and I was lucky enough to have read:

"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,".

Somehow, reading the Declaration of Independence out loud helped me understand it better, a trick I'm sure my teacher was well aware of. Hearing the powerful words made me realize their importance, and their bravery. 56 men took it upon themselves to ratify and sign a document that was politely severing their colonies from a well-established monarchy. By signing said document, founding fathers like John Adams and Benjamin Franklin knew the penalty for their treason could mean death. Despite the fact that the document could have been the last thing they ever signed, they did so.

That blatant show of courage gave (and still gives) me hope. Great men, who may have been considered ordinary in their day, wrote an amazing document that sparked the American Revolution. Their words also helped spark two other national revolutions in less than 10 years: the French Revolution of 1789 and the Haitian Revolution of 1791. Those seemingly ordinary (but truly extraordinary) men rose to the occasion when their liberty was questioned. They fought for their rights, and I realized at the early age of 9 that I was lucky to live in a country with such a legacy. I was free in all meanings of the word, and I was free because of such passages as,

"When long train of abuses and usurpations pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under Despotism, it is [a person's] right, it is [a person's] duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security,".

As the years of history classes passed me by, I also came to the conclusion that the Declaration of Independence became a sort of standard for the rest of the world to live by. Not only did countries like France and Haiti desire freedom from oppression, but other countries caught the freedom bug later on, like India and Colombia. The most famous lines are those that have been used in other revolutionary documents, in one form or another:

"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,".

Even though my own mother had already instilled similar values in me, it was another thing to see these ideas printed as a guidebook for the U.S. government when I was in the third grade.The girl sitting next to me in class had the same rights as I did. Huh. The boy who sat in front of me had the same unalienable right to pursue his goals in life as I did. It was humbling to know that a chronic bed-wetter and an avid nose-picker were basically no different than I. According to the Declaration of Independence, we are all human beings, and that simple fact means that we matter on a level that cannot be altered.

The Declaration of Independence Transcript, Government Archives Online