Agora Podcasts

  • Welcome
  • TRUTH AND REALITY, Podcast #1, audio: Does it Matter?
    • TRUTH AND REALITY PODCAST #2, audio, Persuasion >
      • TRUTH AND REALITY, PODCAST #3, audio: Universal Truth >
        • Script #1: Does it Matter?
        • Truth and Reality Podcast #2 script: Persuasion
        • Truth and Reality Script #3—PDF
  • Education for Democracy
    • 1. Reason in Science and the Humanities
    • 2. Laboratories of the Soul
    • 3. THE ART OF DIALECTIC
  • Podcast Scripts
    • Podcast #1: Reason in Science and the Humanities
    • Podcast #2: Laboratories of the Soul
    • Podcast #3: The Art of Dialectic
    • Podcast #4: Reason and the Art of Life
  • Podcast Archives
    • Ethics in a Democracy >
      • 1. Ethics in a Democracy (30 minutes)
      • 2. Ethics and Religion, Part 1 (27 minutes)
      • 3. Ethics and Religion, Part 2 (22 minutes)
      • 4. Democracy vs. Oligarchy (26 minutes)
      • 5. Morality (26 minutes)
      • 6. Universal Moral Law (26 minutes)
      • 7. The Enlightenment (24 minutes)
      • 8. Rethinking Immanuel Kant (29 minutes)
      • 9. Minimal Morality (30 minutes)
    • World Community >
      • 1. Roots of Community (33 minutes)
      • 2. The Rise of Nationalism (32 minutes) >
        • ETHICS IN A DEMOCRACY >
          • Podcast #1: What is Democracy?
          • Truth and Reality Podcast #1, script: Does it Matter?
          • Podcast #2: Ethics and Religion, Part 1
          • Podcast #3: Ethics and Religion, Part 2
          • Podcast #4: Democracy vs. Oligarchy
          • Podcast #5: Morality
          • Podcast #6: Universal Moral Law
          • Podcast #7: The Enlightenment
          • Podcast #8: Rethinking Immanuel Kant
          • Podcast #9: Minimal Morality
      • 3. Truth, Reality, and the Growth of Empire (30 minutes)
      • 4. The Future of the American Empire (30 minutes)
      • 5. Ethical and Political Foundations of Community (33 minutes)
      • 6. The Dilemma of Nationalism (30 minutes)
      • 7. Postmodern Politics (31 minutes)
      • 8. Universal Values for a World Community (29 minutes)
      • 9. The Cosmopolitan Idea (32 minutes)
      • 10. Using the Cosmopolitan Idea (25 minutes)
      • 11. Swords and Plowshares (44 minutes)
    • Human Nature >
      • 1. Evolution and Genetics (24 minutes)
      • 2. Artificial Intelligence (23 minutes): Minds and Machines
      • 3: Artificial Intelligence
      • 4. Human Values (22 minutes)
      • 5. Managing Happiness (28 minutes)
      • 6. The Meaning of Life ((28 minutes)
      • 7. Recycling Souls (29 minutes)
      • 8. Manifesting Mind (31 minutes)
      • 9. Mind and Matter (28 minutes)
      • 10. Ideas and Human Nature (37 minutes)
    • Podcast Scripts >
      • HUMAN NATURE >
        • Podcast #1: Evolution and Genetics
        • Podcast #2: Minds and Machines
        • Podcast #3: Human Values
        • Podcast #4: Artificial Intelligence
        • Podcast #5: Managing Happiness
        • Podcast #6: The Meaning of Life
        • Podcast #7: Recycling Souls
        • Podcast #8: Manifesting Mind
        • Podcast #9: Mind and Matter
        • Podcast #10: Ideas and Human Nature
      • WORLD COMMUNITY >
        • Podcast #1: The Roots of Community
        • Podcast #2: The Rise of Nationalism in the Modern World
        • Podcast #3: Truth, Reality, and the Growth of Empire
        • Podcast #4: The Future of the American Empire
        • Podcast #5: Ethical and Political Foundations of Community
        • Podcast #6: The Dilemma of Nationalism in the Modern World
        • Podcast #7: Postmodern Politics
        • Podcast #8: Universal Values for a World Community
        • Podcast #9: The Cosmopolitan Idea
        • Podcast #10: Using the Cosmopolitan Idea
        • Podcast #11: Swords and Plowshares: A Bold Proposal
    • TEXTS AND DOCUMENTS >
      • Reason and the Art of Life, 2014
      • Why Dialogue?
      • Logical Reasoning
      • Declarations of Freedom and Human Dignity >
        • Declaration of Independence
        • Bill of Rights
        • Rights of Man and Citizens
        • Statute of Religious Freedom
        • Declaration of Sentiments
        • Universal Declaration of Human Rights
        • Rights of the Child
        • Rio Declaration on Environment
      • About Agora >
        • Contact Agora
  • Link Page
  • Welcome
  • TRUTH AND REALITY, Podcast #1, audio: Does it Matter?
    • TRUTH AND REALITY PODCAST #2, audio, Persuasion >
      • TRUTH AND REALITY, PODCAST #3, audio: Universal Truth >
        • Script #1: Does it Matter?
        • Truth and Reality Podcast #2 script: Persuasion
        • Truth and Reality Script #3—PDF
  • Education for Democracy
    • 1. Reason in Science and the Humanities
    • 2. Laboratories of the Soul
    • 3. THE ART OF DIALECTIC
  • Podcast Scripts
    • Podcast #1: Reason in Science and the Humanities
    • Podcast #2: Laboratories of the Soul
    • Podcast #3: The Art of Dialectic
    • Podcast #4: Reason and the Art of Life
  • Podcast Archives
    • Ethics in a Democracy >
      • 1. Ethics in a Democracy (30 minutes)
      • 2. Ethics and Religion, Part 1 (27 minutes)
      • 3. Ethics and Religion, Part 2 (22 minutes)
      • 4. Democracy vs. Oligarchy (26 minutes)
      • 5. Morality (26 minutes)
      • 6. Universal Moral Law (26 minutes)
      • 7. The Enlightenment (24 minutes)
      • 8. Rethinking Immanuel Kant (29 minutes)
      • 9. Minimal Morality (30 minutes)
    • World Community >
      • 1. Roots of Community (33 minutes)
      • 2. The Rise of Nationalism (32 minutes) >
        • ETHICS IN A DEMOCRACY >
          • Podcast #1: What is Democracy?
          • Truth and Reality Podcast #1, script: Does it Matter?
          • Podcast #2: Ethics and Religion, Part 1
          • Podcast #3: Ethics and Religion, Part 2
          • Podcast #4: Democracy vs. Oligarchy
          • Podcast #5: Morality
          • Podcast #6: Universal Moral Law
          • Podcast #7: The Enlightenment
          • Podcast #8: Rethinking Immanuel Kant
          • Podcast #9: Minimal Morality
      • 3. Truth, Reality, and the Growth of Empire (30 minutes)
      • 4. The Future of the American Empire (30 minutes)
      • 5. Ethical and Political Foundations of Community (33 minutes)
      • 6. The Dilemma of Nationalism (30 minutes)
      • 7. Postmodern Politics (31 minutes)
      • 8. Universal Values for a World Community (29 minutes)
      • 9. The Cosmopolitan Idea (32 minutes)
      • 10. Using the Cosmopolitan Idea (25 minutes)
      • 11. Swords and Plowshares (44 minutes)
    • Human Nature >
      • 1. Evolution and Genetics (24 minutes)
      • 2. Artificial Intelligence (23 minutes): Minds and Machines
      • 3: Artificial Intelligence
      • 4. Human Values (22 minutes)
      • 5. Managing Happiness (28 minutes)
      • 6. The Meaning of Life ((28 minutes)
      • 7. Recycling Souls (29 minutes)
      • 8. Manifesting Mind (31 minutes)
      • 9. Mind and Matter (28 minutes)
      • 10. Ideas and Human Nature (37 minutes)
    • Podcast Scripts >
      • HUMAN NATURE >
        • Podcast #1: Evolution and Genetics
        • Podcast #2: Minds and Machines
        • Podcast #3: Human Values
        • Podcast #4: Artificial Intelligence
        • Podcast #5: Managing Happiness
        • Podcast #6: The Meaning of Life
        • Podcast #7: Recycling Souls
        • Podcast #8: Manifesting Mind
        • Podcast #9: Mind and Matter
        • Podcast #10: Ideas and Human Nature
      • WORLD COMMUNITY >
        • Podcast #1: The Roots of Community
        • Podcast #2: The Rise of Nationalism in the Modern World
        • Podcast #3: Truth, Reality, and the Growth of Empire
        • Podcast #4: The Future of the American Empire
        • Podcast #5: Ethical and Political Foundations of Community
        • Podcast #6: The Dilemma of Nationalism in the Modern World
        • Podcast #7: Postmodern Politics
        • Podcast #8: Universal Values for a World Community
        • Podcast #9: The Cosmopolitan Idea
        • Podcast #10: Using the Cosmopolitan Idea
        • Podcast #11: Swords and Plowshares: A Bold Proposal
    • TEXTS AND DOCUMENTS >
      • Reason and the Art of Life, 2014
      • Why Dialogue?
      • Logical Reasoning
      • Declarations of Freedom and Human Dignity >
        • Declaration of Independence
        • Bill of Rights
        • Rights of Man and Citizens
        • Statute of Religious Freedom
        • Declaration of Sentiments
        • Universal Declaration of Human Rights
        • Rights of the Child
        • Rio Declaration on Environment
      • About Agora >
        • Contact Agora
  • Link Page
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

 

 OF THE THIRTEEN

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

JULY 4, 1776

 

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          a 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. Prudence, indeed,     will dictate that governments long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath   shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new guards  for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies, and such is now      the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of      the present King of Great Britain is a history          of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having,    in direct object, the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these States. To  prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world:



He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend  to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people,     unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature: a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from  the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with   his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing, with manly firmness,    his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected;   whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large  for their exercise; the state remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population  of these States; for that purpose, obstructing         the laws for naturalization of foreigners, refusing  to pass others to encourage their migrations    hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices,   and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass       our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to   a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent    to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;



For protecting them, by a mock trial,         from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these States;

For calling off our trade with all parts of       the world;

For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury;

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried   for pretended offenses;

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally    the forms of our governments;

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives   of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies     of foreign mercenaries to complete the works        of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens,     taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against    their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by     their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections  amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes,    and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms;  our repeated petitions have been answered only    by repeated injury. A prince, whose character        is thus marked by every act which may define         a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to   our British brethren. We have warned them,     from time to time, of attempts by their legislature   to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.  We have reminded them of the circumstances of  our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf     to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.        We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them,  as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war,     in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in general Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of     the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do,    in the name, and by 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 they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do  all other acts and things which independent states  may of right do. And, for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection  of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.