How to write essay on the declaration of independence? What to start with when writing the declaration of independence essay? We will easily answer these questions easily, as we have collected the most interesting information about this document.

US Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776, according to Wikipedia, was a unique political and legal document, which reflected a number of provisions contained in the political philosophy of the Enlightenment. What is unique about this document? If you and I look at the history of Western Europe, we can see that at that time, a significant number of countries were at the stage of development of the absolutist monarchies. The essence of the political and legal regimes in most European countries was in the unlimited power of the monarch, and even more - in the deification of the very principle of the power hierarchy.

The American Declaration of Independence documented the principle of popular sovereignty for the first time, asserting that the source of power is not the identity of the absolutist monarch, but people themselves, as a set of (political community) free citizens. For the first time in the political and legal document, it was recorded the value of natural, inalienable human rights. Subsequently, this idea is a more detailed form in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of the French Revolution of 1789.

Legal values, ​​expressed in the American Declaration of Independence, of course, can be found in the philosophical and legal thought of the period, and formulated long before the events occurred, related to the formation of the United States in North America or the French Revolution. We can see many of these principles in the works of Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau, and a number of other European and American philosophers of the Enlightenment. However, in the political and legal practices, this document is unique for that time. The thing that had previously been the subject of discussion of scientists and philosophers, became the political and legal realities of life. The Declaration proclaimed the first principles that fundamentally contradicted the prevailing absolutist political and legal ideology and were considered as revolutionary.

The Declaration laid the certain ideological foundations for the emergence of American States: first, it is the principle of popular sovereignty; Secondly, the right of the people to resist the illegal actions of the government was proclaimed for the first time.

The principles of popular sovereignty, legitimacy, superiority and protection of the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Declaration are reflected in the subsequent political and legal documents of the United States: in the Constitution in 1787, the Bill of Rights in 1791 (the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution) and others. In my opinion, the Declaration reflected the spirit of the future of the American state. Moreover, it can not be a coincidence that the date of its adoption - July 4, 1776 – has become the very date, which hitherto revered by Americans as the main state holiday - Independence Day.