''When in the course of human events, the need arises for a people to dissolve the political ties that have bound them to another people and to assume among the powers of the earth the state of separate and equal power to which the Laws of Nature and of God of Nature entitle him, a proper regard to the opinions of mankind requires that that people declare the reasons why they are compelled to secede.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these rights are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government tends to deny these ends, the people have the right to change or abolish it and to institute a new government founded on these principles and to organize its powers in such a form as seems to the people best suited to procure their security and his Happiness''.
The US Declaration of Independence
It is the incipit of the Indipendence declaration of the United States of America, which bears the date of 4 July 1776. It is the national holiday par excellence. Also because it is recognized and shared throughout that great country. In the USA the proclamation of Independence is celebrated in 1776 and not on April 9, when, in 1865, the Civil War ended with the surrender of the Confederacy, the event from which the American nation was reborn. An anniversary that is still divisive, like April 25th here. In reality, it seems that Congress had approved the text in the session of July 2, but had chosen the 4th as the definitive date because that was the day on which it was made public. The Declaration was entrusted to the so-called Commission of Five, made up of delegates designated by Congress: John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson (basically the drafter), Robert Livingston, Roger Sherman.
The Declaration was drawn up on hemp paper and signed at the Philadelphia Convention, when 13 colonies of the British Empire on the East Coast decided to break with the Motherland and found a new sovereign state.
