Americans celebrate Independence Day. Before getting to the part about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, Thomas Jefferson began the Declaration of Independence with history's most eloquent statement of disconnecting:"When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."
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1 comment:
i'm a grt fan of jefferson-- i wish we had one in india. however one jarring aspect remains. jefferson talked about equality of all men etc., but obviously that category didn't include people who were forced into slavery. it escapes me that they who rebelled against the colonial yoke continued with slavery. the only reason i ascribe to satisfy myself is that one shouldn't perhaps judge people who lived two centuries ago through the social and moral standards of today's world. but this still is a case of two different standards being followed: one for the settlers and one for the slaves.
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