|
Contributor: banquosghost
Date: 2003-03-12 20:01:25
"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 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 shewn, 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."...is the bit most relevant to our discussion here I think. This is in the second paragraph, not much more than a couple of sentences beyond the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness you alluded to.
This is then made more complex by the articulation of the theory of Manifest Destiny: "In 1845, a democratic leader and influential editor by the name of John L. O'Sullivan gave the movement its name. In an attempt to explain America's thirst for expansion, and to present a defense for America's claim to new territories he wrote:
".... the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federaltive development of self government entrusted to us. It is right such as that of the tree to the space of air and the earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth." (copied from http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/E/manifest/manif1.htm)
So we have the "right of the people to alter or abolish" their government coloured by "the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole...", then continent, now world?
Food for cheap pop-psychological thought, ne? :-)
Reply to this message
|
