(patriotic music)
The year is 1776, the place, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Tension in the American colonies
is at an all-time high and now, King George III,
the ruler of Great Britain, has passed some laws
that we colonists find, well, intolerable.
He's taxing us even though we don't have any representatives
in the British Parliament.
We're paying the government,
but we don't have any say in the government.
He's also forcing us to only buy British goods,
so he gets the revenue.
(coins clinking)
What's that about?
And he's using that money to support the troops
he keeps sending over here.
We don't even want British soldiers
in the American colonies, no.
The last straw was when he told us we had
to provide food for the soldiers
and give them somewhere to sleep,
within our own houses, if necessary, without any payment.
Well we have just about had enough, mister.
The scenario I just described was what led Thomas Jefferson
and the other founding fathers
(drum roll)
to get together and write what turned out to be
one of the most important documents in American history,
the Declaration of Independence.
(heavenly chorus)
(clears throat)
The document that explained why the American colonies
were breaking away from Great Britain.
In earlier times, maybe, the colonists would have
just put up with all these indignities,
but it was the Age of Enlightenment. (harp strums)
The Enlightenment was a new way of thinking about the world.
It celebrated natural rights,
declaring that people are equal and have freedoms
that no government can take away.
Enlightenment thinkers also came up with
the social contract, the idea that government
is there to protect people's rights.
And they argued that governments should be chosen
and controlled by the people,
an idea known as popular sovereignty.
These Enlightenment ideas made
all the things King George was doing pretty hard to swallow.
Essays and pamphlets written by people like John Locke
and Thomas Paine inspired the colonists
to start standing up to the British
and eventually to declare their independence.
The result was a brand new nation,
the United States of America
and a uniquely American form of democracy.
A democracy in which the people,
people like you and people like me have that power.
Hey, I really like that and this outfit.
Colonists knew what was goin' on.
