The Ideal That Underlies the Declaration of Independence

When America’s Founders wrote the declaration that gave birth to the new nation, they began by saying that “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes.” Other nations had been born out of conquests or rebellions, many based on tribal or religious identities. But the United States was born out of an ideal, which they proclaimed in the next sentence:

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.

These truths became the creed that bound a diverse group of pilgrims and immigrants into one nation. For people of many different beliefs and backgrounds, it defined Americans’ common ground.