But we are killing them.  Who?  The question is not who, but what.  I’m talking about our country’s founding documents.  Those who do nothing to preserve them are party to their demise.

Why should we care?  Aren’t they just obsolete documents written by dead white men?  The answer to that lies not in listening to the popular ignorance that is espoused seemingly everywhere, but in knowing what the documents say and why they were written.  The why is the most difficult part, so let’s start with the what.  I’ll post parts of the Declaration of Independence from time to time, in small chunks, and I’ll make it less painful by interspersing photos between posts of text.

Keep in mind that the War of Independence (AKA, Revolutionary War) had been going on for about a year when this document was created.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

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 the separation.

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.