nt becomes destructive of those ends it is the right of
the people to alter or to abolish it, and to reinstate 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._

The Declaration goes on to specify the causes of grievances which the
colonists conceive themselves to have against the royal government, and
concludes as follows:--

_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 the 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._

The first principles set out in the Declaration must be rightly grasped
if American history is understood, for indeed the story of America is
merely the story of the working out of those principles. Briefly the
theses are two: first, that men are of right equal, and secondly, that
the moral basis of the relations between governors and governed is
contractual. Both doctrines have in this age had to stand the fire of
criticisms almost too puerile to be noticed. It is gravely pointed out
that men are of different heights and weights, that they vary in
muscular power and mental cultivation--as if either Rousseau or
Jefferson was likely to have failed to notice this occult fact!
Similarly the doctrine of the contractual basis of society is met by a
demand for the production of a signed, sealed, and delivered contract,
or at least for evidence that such a contract was ever made. But
Rousseau says--with a good sense and modesty which dealers in
"prehistoric" history would do well to copy--that he does not know how
government in fact arose. Nor does anyone else. What he maintains is
that the moral sanction of government is contractual, or, as Jefferson
puts it, that government "derives its just powers from the consent of
the governed."

The doctrine of human equality is in a sense mystical. It is not
apparent to the senses, nor can it be logically demonstrated as an
inference from anything of which the senses can take cognizance. It can
only be stated accurately, and left to make its appeal to men's minds.
It may be stated theologically by saying, as the Christian theology
says, that all men are equal before God. Or it