Question

describe connections between the Declaration of Independence and the first principle, popular sovereignty. Be sure to include a quote from the Declaration of Independence

Answer 1

Popular Sovereignty is a concept that holds that all political power is inherent in the people, meaning that it is the people who create the government, determine its nature and sustain it. This principle is central in the Declaration of Independence, in which Thomas Jefferson, on behalf of the thirteen colonies, formally declared America's independence from Britain and denounced the tyrant rule of the British Crown.

In the document, Jefferson claims that governments are instituted by men to protect people's unalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. However, he also claims that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,” which reflects the Popular Sovereignty idea that the government is created by and subject to the will of the people.

Furthermore, Jefferson affirms the same idea right before he provides a list with the King's wrondoings that led the colonists to dissolve the political bands with Britain: “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.”

Answer 2

"Popular sovereignty" means the people are in charge of establishing a government over themselves.    The founding fathers of the United States adopted the idea of popular sovereignty from Enlightenment philosophers like John Locke (of England) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (of France).

The Declaration of Independence (1776), written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, asserted the concept of popular sovereignty.  The Declaration insisted that people institute governments in order to secure their rights, and that governments get their authority from the consent of the governed.  "Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends," the Declaration of Independence said, "it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."