LAD #3: Declaration of Independence

There are many democratic principles that Thomas Jefferson included when he wrote the Declaration of Independence. One of them was the three unalienable rights - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. the Americans believed that these unalienable rights were necessary for everyone to have. the designers of the Declaration also believed that the government should be established in order to benefit the people, not to benefit themselves. This is one of the most important of the democratic principles because democracy is based on the needs of the people.
As well as including some democratic principles, the creators of the Declaration also included a long list of grievances, or complaints against the British Government that stated and explained all of the wrongdoings. Some of these wrongdoings include King George III's refusal to pass laws benefiting the people unless they benefited him as well. In addition, George III also dissolved Representative Houses that did not agree with his opinions as well as threatening to fire judges who did not execute his will. King George III also kept troops in the colonies even when fighting was absent from the scene as well as forcing the colonists to house the soldiers in their homes. He had also started enforcing the navigation acts, which made it mandatory for the colonies to only trade with Britain. He has put heavy taxes on the colonies that their local governments did not agree on. King George II also abolished the right to trial by jury in the Colonies. One of the most influential things he did to the colonial people was to impress them to the British Navy, forcing some to fight against their own countrymen in war.
On July 4, 1776, the American colonies signed the Declaration of Independence and officially declared themselves independent of the British. Although the colonists were not officially politically independent of the British until the end of the Revolution in 1783, they were ideologically free of British control. The colonies announced that they were now their own country, able to declare war, form alliances with other countries, and manage themselves from here on in.