WEBVTT NOTE The Declaration of Independence 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.000 The Declaration of Independence 2 00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:11.000 There are several important documents that bear heavily on the kind of life we live in these United States. 3 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:14.000 One of them is the Declaration of Independence. 4 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:19.000 And although it is true that the Declaration of Independence has no legal standing 5 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:22.000 and never has had any from the time it was first written, 6 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:25.000 its influence has been profound, 7 00:00:25.000 --> 00:00:31.200 and the thoughts contained in it are probably today less understood than at 8 00:00:31.200 --> 00:00:35.720 the time they were first put there, but nonetheless those thoughts continue to 9 00:00:35.720 --> 00:00:43.280 be important expressions of ideas that are meaningful primarily to those of us 10 00:00:43.280 --> 00:00:49.680 who live in the United States. Since it is quite probable that we have not all 11 00:00:49.680 --> 00:00:54.880 learned to think about the Declaration of Independence in the same way, I would 12 00:00:54.880 --> 00:01:01.200 I'd like to go over the most meaningful part of the declaration so that we could at least 13 00:01:01.200 --> 00:01:08.580 for a very short time think about it in the same way so that we could understand what 14 00:01:08.580 --> 00:01:15.180 it was that the men who wrote it were trying to say and trying to set down as a guiding 15 00:01:15.180 --> 00:01:20.820 principle for their actions and conceivably for the actions of others. 16 00:01:20.820 --> 00:01:28.380 First we have to set this into a chronological context. The war that was to separate the 17 00:01:28.380 --> 00:01:34.360 colonies from the mother country of England had begun a little better than a year before. 18 00:01:34.360 --> 00:01:42.140 Usually we say that the war began with the Battle of Lexington in April of 1775. Then 19 00:01:42.140 --> 00:02:06.620 All through the rest of 1775, the war continued, and in January of 1776, Tom Paine, a bridge builder that no one had ever heard about, wrote a little track called Common Sense, and from that came the general idea that was then to be set forth in the Declaration of Independence. 20 00:02:06.620 --> 00:02:14.780 Tom Paine, being a virtual unknown, was nonetheless very influential with his pamphlet, and the 21 00:02:14.780 --> 00:02:19.920 consequence was that other persons who were influential thought that they had best get 22 00:02:19.920 --> 00:02:26.880 together and issue a public statement, which in a very real sense was nothing more than 23 00:02:26.880 --> 00:02:33.960 a paraphrase of what Paine had already put down in his pamphlet Common Sense. 24 00:02:33.960 --> 00:02:43.340 So in July of 1776, these influential men, fifty-six in number, gathered in Philadelphia. 25 00:02:43.340 --> 00:02:50.240 The declaration itself is, we believe, written by Thomas Jefferson, who got the job of writing 26 00:02:50.240 --> 00:02:58.940 it. It was discussed relatively briefly. So far as we understand, only one serious debate 27 00:02:58.940 --> 00:03:06.060 arose relating to the wording in the document. Otherwise, there were a few minor corrections 28 00:03:06.060 --> 00:03:14.540 made and then all 56 of the people present accepted it and signed it and it became the 29 00:03:14.540 --> 00:03:22.540 Declaration of Independence. Now, the document falls into four sections very logically. There 30 00:03:22.540 --> 00:03:28.820 is a kind of preamble which is the first paragraph and it begins with those well-known words 31 00:03:28.820 --> 00:03:32.340 and so on. 32 00:03:32.340 --> 00:03:36.380 Then the second part begins with the second paragraph, and that's the point I want to 33 00:03:36.380 --> 00:03:43.500 focus our attention on because the real meat of the instrument is contained therein. 34 00:03:43.500 --> 00:03:49.600 Now after we are through with the second paragraph, we go into the third part, which is really 35 00:03:49.600 --> 00:03:53.080 a bill of indictment against the King of England. 36 00:03:53.080 --> 00:03:59.920 is a listing of the particular offenses which the colonists felt the king was guilty of 37 00:03:59.920 --> 00:04:05.040 and tabulates just how bad they are. We won't take the time to get into that part of the 38 00:04:05.040 --> 00:04:10.520 declaration, but I hope that you will do so at your leisure and examine it because what 39 00:04:10.520 --> 00:04:16.400 you will find is, I think, a reason for surprise. 40 00:04:16.400 --> 00:04:24.280 The things that the colonists were up in arms about were so minor compared to the heavy 41 00:04:24.280 --> 00:04:30.160 burdens that our government has placed on us that I think today, if you could, you would 42 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:34.560 be quite willing to turn around and say, well, let's have George III back again. 43 00:04:34.560 --> 00:04:39.960 Even with all of his excesses, he never came close to what our own government is doing 44 00:04:39.960 --> 00:04:40.960 today. 45 00:04:40.960 --> 00:04:46.040 Be that as it may, that is the third part of the declaration. 46 00:04:46.040 --> 00:04:52.760 And then the final and concluding part is sort of a summation wherein the authors say 47 00:04:52.760 --> 00:04:58.880 that they have appealed to the king again and again for some kind of redress of their 48 00:04:58.880 --> 00:05:04.160 grievances and he has treated each appeal with indifference and scorn and therefore 49 00:05:04.160 --> 00:05:09.000 although they don't want to do it, they are compelled by the circumstances that they face 50 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:14.760 to do it and they hereby declare that they intend to separate and go their separate way 51 00:05:14.760 --> 00:05:20.760 and then appear the signatures of the 56 men who were present for the occasion. 52 00:05:20.760 --> 00:05:26.560 The signature of John Hancock, of course, as you know, is a very large one, and it has 53 00:05:26.560 --> 00:05:33.200 always been said that when he signed it, Hancock said very sardonically, well, I'll sign it 54 00:05:33.200 --> 00:05:39.680 in a way where George won't have to use his spectacles, and so he wrote it large enough. 55 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:43.120 That's the Declaration of Independence. 56 00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:49.540 It's a very short, a very brief document, and yet in a very real sense it is an extremely 57 00:05:49.540 --> 00:05:55.640 revolutionary document, and that essence is in the second paragraph, and what I propose 58 00:05:55.640 --> 00:05:56.640 to do is this. 59 00:05:56.640 --> 00:06:02.480 I'd like to take the first five sentences from the second paragraph, and I'll read each 60 00:06:02.480 --> 00:06:08.780 one so that we have the general sense of it, and then I'll go back over each of those sentences 61 00:06:08.780 --> 00:06:12.800 to analyze it to be sure that we are thinking alike about it. 62 00:06:12.800 --> 00:06:20.680 Now the first sentence in the second paragraph is this one, we hold these truths to be self-evident 63 00:06:20.680 --> 00:06:25.400 that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain 64 00:06:25.400 --> 00:06:32.600 unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 65 00:06:32.600 --> 00:06:34.160 Now that's the first sentence. 66 00:06:34.160 --> 00:06:40.200 And let me go over that to be sure that we understand what these words say and what they 67 00:06:40.200 --> 00:06:47.000 they meant at the time they were put down. We hold these truths to be self-evident. Now 68 00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:52.560 when we are speaking in terms of self-evident truth in philosophy, we are speaking in terms 69 00:06:52.560 --> 00:06:59.940 of an axiom. All philosophy, in fact all reason, is predicated upon axioms. It begins at an 70 00:06:59.940 --> 00:07:07.300 axiomatic level, at levels where you cannot prove, but you just know that it is so. An 71 00:07:07.300 --> 00:07:14.540 An example would be this axiom, man is. Is that true? Well, of course it's true. We all 72 00:07:14.540 --> 00:07:19.740 know it's true. Can you prove it? No, you can't prove it because there is a contradictory 73 00:07:19.740 --> 00:07:28.580 axiom that is also true and that is man dies. Well, how can we say man is and at the same 74 00:07:28.580 --> 00:07:34.980 time say man dies? Well, we can because they're both true. You can't prove either one. We 75 00:07:34.980 --> 00:07:39.980 We don't know what man is, we don't know what existence is, but it's self-evident, it's 76 00:07:39.980 --> 00:07:41.900 a self-evident truth. 77 00:07:41.900 --> 00:07:47.540 And so when we find this phrase appearing here, we know that the authors of the Declaration 78 00:07:47.540 --> 00:07:55.100 are intending to make a very deep, philosophical, fundamental statement. 79 00:07:55.100 --> 00:08:03.160 This is not to be an expedient political device for accomplishing some minor objective. 80 00:08:03.160 --> 00:08:08.680 This is to be bedrock stuff, and they are setting it forth by saying, we hold these 81 00:08:08.680 --> 00:08:16.720 truths to be self-evident. In other words, here is an axiomatic position upon which we 82 00:08:16.720 --> 00:08:21.960 are basing everything that we intend doing. Now, that is a very important thing to understand. 83 00:08:21.960 --> 00:08:29.560 There is also a secondary meaning that may appear here, and that is not merely a philosophic 84 00:08:29.560 --> 00:08:34.760 approach, but really quite a pragmatic one. Because you see, of course, with the benefit 85 00:08:34.760 --> 00:08:41.840 of hindsight, we know what they're going to say. And what they had in mind was making 86 00:08:41.840 --> 00:08:46.680 a clear declaration of the fact that the king didn't have any more rights than they did 87 00:08:46.680 --> 00:08:54.080 as individuals. And that's at this time a very revolutionary idea. This was really to 88 00:08:54.080 --> 00:09:18.920 The General Conception was that if you survived, it was only because you were under the control 89 00:09:18.920 --> 00:09:22.840 of a monarch who had been divinely ordained. 90 00:09:22.840 --> 00:09:28.680 We had had a very practical experience in the colonial area, in what we called the new 91 00:09:28.680 --> 00:09:34.280 world, because thanks to the indifference and the slothfulness of the British kings, 92 00:09:34.280 --> 00:09:39.280 we had left that part of the world, the old world, come to the new world and gotten out 93 00:09:39.280 --> 00:09:45.520 from under their control in large measure. We had been untaxed and unregulated for 150 94 00:09:45.520 --> 00:09:53.320 Years, and we had made it. It was working well. And so when these leading citizens put 95 00:09:53.320 --> 00:09:58.280 down the idea, we hold these truths to be self-evident, and of course we know what they're 96 00:09:58.280 --> 00:10:04.560 going to say, then they were perhaps also thinking not only in a philosophic term, but 97 00:10:04.560 --> 00:10:09.760 in a very practical sense. In other words, we have gotten out from under the king for 98 00:10:09.760 --> 00:10:15.360 150 years, and we're not dead, therefore you don't really need a king. And this is really 99 00:10:15.360 --> 00:10:22.180 So in that very first sentence, the gauntlet is thrown down, so to speak. We hold these 100 00:10:22.180 --> 00:10:28.680 truths to be self-evident, and then there's a comma, and then it says that all men are 101 00:10:28.680 --> 00:10:36.380 created equal. And how often I wish that they had taken that phrase and copied Tom Paine 102 00:10:36.380 --> 00:10:42.500 a little more closely, because again and again, that phrase has been lifted out of context 103 00:10:42.500 --> 00:10:47.500 to make it appear that what they are trying to say is that all men have equal ability, 104 00:10:47.500 --> 00:10:53.820 that all men have equal brain power, and that all men are equal in every conceivable sense. 105 00:10:53.820 --> 00:10:57.620 And the men putting this down were among the foremost in the world who would have known 106 00:10:57.620 --> 00:11:04.160 that that wasn't true. These men were elitists, and they certainly knew that men are not equal 107 00:11:04.160 --> 00:11:09.340 in any physical sense, nor were they trying to suggest that. What they are really setting 108 00:11:09.340 --> 00:11:26.020 What they are setting forth is a concept of morality that is absolutely new. 109 00:11:26.020 --> 00:11:32.880 You see, in the old days, the king could do no wrong because he had rights and they were 110 00:11:32.880 --> 00:11:36.380 divinely ordained and no one else had any. 111 00:11:36.380 --> 00:11:41.500 Now they were setting forth the idea that every man had the same rights and therefore 112 00:11:41.500 --> 00:11:47.880 the king didn't own anybody and therefore since all men had equal rights there would 113 00:11:47.880 --> 00:11:53.700 be certain areas in which each man could act where he could do no wrong. 114 00:11:53.700 --> 00:11:57.980 And this would be in areas in respect to his own person and property. 115 00:11:57.980 --> 00:11:59.740 That's what they're setting forth. 116 00:11:59.740 --> 00:12:05.020 It is a declaration of individualism that they are getting at and that appears in that 117 00:12:05.020 --> 00:12:14.620 that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain 118 00:12:14.620 --> 00:12:19.580 unalienable rights. In other words, what they're getting at is this, rights are not 119 00:12:19.580 --> 00:12:27.140 granted to you by the state or by other men. You have them originally because at the moment 120 00:12:27.140 --> 00:12:32.100 of birth you happen to be a man, so you come fully equipped with rights. And then they 121 00:12:32.100 --> 00:12:36.100 Certain Unalienable Rights 122 00:13:02.100 --> 00:13:07.640 say that among these, they're not going to list them all, that among these are life, 123 00:13:07.640 --> 00:13:12.500 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And believe it or not, it was right there that 124 00:13:12.500 --> 00:13:18.980 they got into their big debate in the discussion. Because in the Virginia Bill of Rights, which 125 00:13:18.980 --> 00:13:26.240 had just been drafted prior to this, and also in Tom Paine's Common Sense, the implication 126 00:13:26.240 --> 00:13:33.120 is clear, and even the direct words are used, that all men have rights to life, liberty, 127 00:13:33.120 --> 00:13:39.280 property and the pursuit of happiness. But the word property does not appear. And a debate 128 00:13:39.280 --> 00:13:47.840 ensued as to why didn't it appear? Well, it worked out this way, that in the South we 129 00:13:47.840 --> 00:13:57.200 We had slavery at the time, and the definition of a slave was a man who had lost his rights 130 00:13:57.200 --> 00:14:04.480 to own property because he himself had become a property and property doesn't own property. 131 00:14:04.480 --> 00:14:12.560 Therefore the slave is a man who has lost his rights to own property, and therefore 132 00:14:12.560 --> 00:14:18.560 If you were to say that all men had a right to property, you would be saying that slavery 133 00:14:18.560 --> 00:14:20.160 was immoral. 134 00:14:20.160 --> 00:14:26.120 Well, the owners of slaves from the South didn't want to say that, because this would 135 00:14:26.120 --> 00:14:31.700 mean that in order for them to regain their moral position, they would have to get rid 136 00:14:31.700 --> 00:14:32.700 of their slaves. 137 00:14:32.700 --> 00:14:36.020 In fact, Jefferson, it is said, made that observation. 138 00:14:36.020 --> 00:14:40.220 He said that if the word property were put into the declaration, then he would have to 139 00:14:40.220 --> 00:15:01.220 Unfortunately, the delegates from South Carolina and Georgia ganged up on this particular point 140 00:15:01.220 --> 00:15:02.820 and refused to budge. 141 00:15:02.820 --> 00:15:09.340 They said that if the declaration were approved with the word property put into it, they would 142 00:15:09.340 --> 00:15:11.340 The Declaration of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness 143 00:15:39.340 --> 00:15:45.240 Restored. Now, this, of course, does provide an ambivalence in the declaration, but that's 144 00:15:45.240 --> 00:15:50.980 where it came about and that's what it's about. One cannot help but wonder what a history 145 00:15:50.980 --> 00:15:56.340 of this country might have been had the word property been put in. Certainly, the trilogy 146 00:15:56.340 --> 00:16:02.340 of essences that inspired the entire revolutionary effort was life, liberty, and property, irrespective 147 00:16:02.340 --> 00:16:06.460 of what the Declaration of Independence said. But let me go on with it. Here's the second 148 00:16:06.460 --> 00:16:13.760 sentence, an equally potent and meaningful sentence. That to secure these rights, governments 149 00:16:13.760 --> 00:16:20.700 are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Now, 150 00:16:20.700 --> 00:16:26.020 let me go back over that to be sure we're thinking alike. That to secure these rights, 151 00:16:26.020 --> 00:16:31.860 now wait a minute, that sounds like a contradiction to the first sentence because in the first 152 00:16:31.860 --> 00:17:01.860 The first sentence, it says, all men are endowed with certain unalienable rights, and now it says that to secure them, governments are instituted. Is it a contradiction? Actually, no. In our use of the language, it appears to be because we have corrupted the language from its original usage at the time this was written. When this was first penned, the word secure meant only to make safe, to nail down. Presently, the word is used to mean to obtain 153 00:17:01.860 --> 00:17:03.620 as well as to retain. 154 00:17:03.620 --> 00:17:08.080 And so we have a double meaning there that was not in the use of that word at the time 155 00:17:08.080 --> 00:17:09.180 this was written. 156 00:17:09.180 --> 00:17:16.580 So what they are really saying is that you are born with certain equal and unalienable 157 00:17:16.580 --> 00:17:18.480 rights and all men have them. 158 00:17:18.480 --> 00:17:21.900 Now these relate to your moral position. 159 00:17:21.900 --> 00:17:26.680 And to make certain that nothing immoral happens, that's the idea. 160 00:17:26.680 --> 00:17:33.360 To make certain that nothing immoral happens, governments are instituted among men to wit, 161 00:17:33.360 --> 00:17:40.280 governments are created by men and instituted among them, and get this phrase, deriving 162 00:17:40.280 --> 00:17:46.120 their just powers from the consent of the governed. 163 00:17:46.120 --> 00:17:52.540 Now that clearly indicates that it would be possible for a government to have just powers. 164 00:17:52.540 --> 00:17:57.820 It makes it quite clear that the government, to have just powers, must have them as a result 165 00:17:57.820 --> 00:18:05.140 of a contractual relation that would be established between the governed and the governor. 166 00:18:05.140 --> 00:18:10.460 In other words, if the government is to have just powers, it could only be that power granted 167 00:18:10.460 --> 00:18:13.560 to it by an individual having rights. 168 00:18:13.560 --> 00:18:19.240 But note, please, the inference is clear that it would be possible for a government to have 169 00:18:19.240 --> 00:18:27.320 And if that would be the case, then an unjust power would obviously be a power which the 170 00:18:27.320 --> 00:18:32.720 government has taken without the consent of the governed. 171 00:18:32.720 --> 00:18:35.120 And note this one additional point. 172 00:18:35.120 --> 00:18:40.280 It doesn't say without the consent of a majority of those governed. 173 00:18:40.280 --> 00:18:46.800 It clearly indicates that each individual to be governed must grant his consent. 174 00:18:46.800 --> 00:18:56.800 Otherwise the first sentence is null and void where it states clearly that each individual is endowed with certain equal and unalienable rights. 175 00:18:56.800 --> 00:19:14.800 Therefore each person has a right and could grant to a government a power if he chose to, but if he does not choose to, the government has no rightful power over him, and if the government presumes to take a power over him, it is a wrongful power by definition. 176 00:19:14.800 --> 00:19:19.800 Now that's what the Declaration says. It clearly sets it forth. 177 00:19:19.800 --> 00:19:23.800 And I venture to say there are many Americans who don't know that. 178 00:19:23.800 --> 00:19:27.800 Let me go on. This is quite an instrument here. 179 00:19:27.800 --> 00:19:29.800 This is the third sentence. 180 00:19:29.800 --> 00:19:34.800 That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, 181 00:19:34.800 --> 00:19:39.800 it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it 182 00:19:39.800 --> 00:19:52.300 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. 183 00:19:52.300 --> 00:19:54.300 Let me go back over that. 184 00:19:54.300 --> 00:20:07.800 That whenever any form of government, now if words have meanings at all, that clearly indicates that at any time, any particular kind of government, in other words there is no time that is sacred, 185 00:20:07.800 --> 00:20:14.600 and there is no kind of government that is sacred. At any time, any form of government, if it becomes 186 00:20:14.600 --> 00:20:23.240 destructive of these ends, what ends? The ends of maintaining your moral position, that is, your 187 00:20:23.240 --> 00:20:30.200 right to do as you please with your person and your property, your right to life, liberty and the 188 00:20:30.200 --> 00:20:36.680 pursuit of happiness, in other words. If at any time, any government becomes destructive of these 189 00:20:36.680 --> 00:20:58.680 The right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and now at the same level the right to alter or abolish your government. 190 00:20:58.680 --> 00:21:16.680 And, of course, this has to be the case, because if you have rights, then the government has only a confided power, and therefore your position is superior to your government's, your government is merely your servant, and if it serves you, well and good. 191 00:21:16.680 --> 00:21:17.680 Good. 192 00:21:17.680 --> 00:21:25.240 But when it presumes to act for you, and specifically against your wishes, your rights are greater 193 00:21:25.240 --> 00:21:31.840 than its power, and therefore you have a right to alter it, to change it so it won't be doing 194 00:21:31.840 --> 00:21:37.200 what it's doing, or if you don't want to do that, or for any reason don't feel that you 195 00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:43.140 can do so, then your right goes even to the point of abolishing the government and replacing 196 00:21:43.140 --> 00:21:54.500 Let me take sentence number four. 197 00:21:54.500 --> 00:21:56.660 It introduces a note of caution. 198 00:21:56.660 --> 00:22:01.660 Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for 199 00:22:01.660 --> 00:22:07.260 light and transient causes, and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are 200 00:22:07.260 --> 00:22:12.400 more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the 201 00:22:12.400 --> 00:22:15.600 and the forms to which they are accustomed. 202 00:22:15.600 --> 00:22:17.800 Actually that says two things. 203 00:22:17.800 --> 00:22:23.920 It says, first of all, take it easy, don't be hot-headed, don't get upset over light 204 00:22:23.920 --> 00:22:26.960 and temporary problems. 205 00:22:26.960 --> 00:22:32.600 But at the same time it says mankind are prone to suffer and suffer and suffer, so it indicates 206 00:22:32.600 --> 00:22:36.400 don't die on the vine, don't give up, just don't quit. 207 00:22:36.400 --> 00:22:42.800 Stay alert, don't be hot-headed, but don't let the chains and shackles of tyranny press 208 00:22:42.800 --> 00:22:46.660 you down. So it's a note of caution both ways. 209 00:22:46.660 --> 00:22:50.180 And then we come to sentence number five, which, as I view it, is probably the most 210 00:22:50.180 --> 00:22:55.440 revolutionary of all in this instrument, and may very well be the most revolutionary statement 211 00:22:55.440 --> 00:23:03.060 in the English language, possibly in any language. This is a fantastic statement. Listen carefully. 212 00:23:03.060 --> 00:23:11.100 But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces 213 00:23:11.100 --> 00:23:19.060 a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty to throw 214 00:23:19.060 --> 00:23:25.420 off such government and to provide new guards for their future security. 215 00:23:25.420 --> 00:23:28.500 Did you get that? 216 00:23:28.500 --> 00:23:36.960 When a government evinces a pattern of behavior in which your rights are ignored or deliberately 217 00:23:36.960 --> 00:23:44.600 obscured, where indeed the government begins to presume that it is the important item and 218 00:23:44.600 --> 00:23:51.500 that you are not, that its function is not to serve you, but to make you serve it, when 219 00:23:51.500 --> 00:23:58.620 If this happens, you not only have a right to throw off such government, you have a duty 220 00:23:58.620 --> 00:24:06.460 to get rid of it. How about that? That's the Declaration of Independence. That's the 221 00:24:06.460 --> 00:24:12.940 meaningful core of the whole idea within it. Now, I don't know whether you like that 222 00:24:12.940 --> 00:24:20.240 or not. That's not the point. The point is that it is there. The founding fathers who 223 00:24:20.240 --> 00:24:26.120 who saw the situation they were in and who wanted to do something about it, recognized 224 00:24:26.120 --> 00:24:29.400 these ideas and set them down in this way. 225 00:24:29.400 --> 00:24:32.540 Very interesting things have happened about the declaration. 226 00:24:32.540 --> 00:24:37.680 I remember when I was a small lad, we always used to celebrate the 4th of July with great 227 00:24:37.680 --> 00:24:41.920 enthusiasm and there were exciting speeches and we had firecrackers and it was really 228 00:24:41.920 --> 00:24:42.920 quite a thing. 229 00:24:42.920 --> 00:24:47.400 But of course, the government has been protecting us from this for a long time now. 230 00:24:47.400 --> 00:24:51.800 It's very dangerous to celebrate, and it's particularly dangerous to bring out the Declaration 231 00:24:51.800 --> 00:24:57.160 of Independence and read it. And, most of all, read it and understand it. Because when 232 00:24:57.160 --> 00:25:02.280 you understand it, it clearly sets forth the proposition that the government is the least 233 00:25:02.280 --> 00:25:07.920 of your blessings, it is only a safeguard to protect your rights, and if it forgets that, 234 00:25:07.920 --> 00:25:13.080 you have the right and the government does not. The government has only a confided power, 235 00:25:13.080 --> 00:25:17.380 and thus it remains with you as to what you will do with the government, not the government 236 00:25:17.380 --> 00:25:28.560 Let me give you an instance of just what happened. 237 00:25:28.560 --> 00:25:33.500 Some of my students attending the University of Wisconsin, having studied with me prior 238 00:25:33.500 --> 00:25:37.380 to this, thought they'd conduct a little experiment. 239 00:25:37.380 --> 00:25:42.540 So they typed out those five sentences that I've just read to you on a piece of paper. 240 00:25:42.540 --> 00:25:45.040 They typed at the head of it, petition. 241 00:25:45.040 --> 00:25:49.920 And then at the bottom they put places for signatures and they went out on the street 242 00:25:49.920 --> 00:25:56.080 and approached private citizens and they handed them this petition and they said, read this 243 00:25:56.080 --> 00:25:59.600 and if you approve of it, sign it. 244 00:25:59.600 --> 00:26:00.600 That's all. 245 00:26:00.600 --> 00:26:04.640 Didn't ask to do anything, just read this and if you approve of it, sign it. 246 00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:08.760 They approached over a hundred people and only two signed it. 247 00:26:08.760 --> 00:26:11.040 And you know what the comment was by the rest of them? 248 00:26:11.040 --> 00:26:13.520 Oh boy, that's communist stuff, isn't it? 249 00:26:13.520 --> 00:26:18.640 Wow, I wouldn't dare sign that. I'd get fired. I'd lose my job. Hey, how come you guys are running 250 00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:24.320 around like this? This is a lot of red propaganda, isn't it? Ladies and gentlemen, this is the 251 00:26:24.320 --> 00:26:33.920 Declaration of Independence, a basic instrument that inspired men around the world. When this 252 00:26:33.920 --> 00:26:40.560 instrument was first struck off and people glimpsed the idea, it created a fantastic 253 00:26:40.560 --> 00:26:48.400 Image for this country. It created the idea that we could call image America, a land of the free. 254 00:26:49.280 --> 00:26:57.040 In this country, there wasn't going to be a king or any super people called politicians who had 255 00:26:57.040 --> 00:27:05.120 power over you. Goodness, no. The idea was that you had the same rights everybody else did. 256 00:27:05.120 --> 00:27:13.360 You could look anyone in the eye and say, you and I are equal morally. Sure, you may have more 257 00:27:13.360 --> 00:27:19.280 ability than I have, but that doesn't make you any better than I am from a moral point of view. 258 00:27:20.240 --> 00:27:27.200 That was the idea that rocked the world. And we in America actually have this document, 259 00:27:28.080 --> 00:27:32.800 and many Americans have forgotten what it says and what it means.