New York Times
Editorial
July 2, 2010
Today we celebrate an event that took place in the 18th century. It is an unusual event to commemorate with a holiday — not the first shot in a battle or the toppling of a government but the broadcasting, as it was in those days, of a proposition about the nature and the rights of human beings. How fruitful, how reasonable, how correct that proposition was, we have seen again and again throughout our history. That proposition was the Declaration of Independence.
We know the words well, but they bear repeating: “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.”
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