"We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these 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 becomes destructive of these ends, 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." * * * * * "Finally we do assert and declare ... that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states,... and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." The most reasonable interpretation, as it seems to me, of the statement that "all men are created equal" is, as I have said, that it is, and was intended to be, an epitome of the doctrine of the Reformation. There will be those who will scoff at the suggestion that a political body like the Continental Congress should have based the whole political life of the nation upon a religious doctrine. But it is to be remembered that the Continental Congress was not an ordinary political body. It was the most philosophic and at the same time the most religious and the most intellectually untrammeled body of men who ever gathered to discuss political theories and measures. Meeting under circumstances where weakness of resources compelled the most absolute justness in their reasons for taking up arms, they must have discussed their position from the standpoint of morality and religion. John Adams tells us that one of the main points discussed at the opening of the Continental Congress, when they were framing the ultimatum which finally took the form of the Fourth Resolution was, whether the Congress should "recur to the law of nature" as determining the rights of America. He says that he was "very strenuous for retaining and insisting on it," and the Resolutions show that he succeeded, for they based the American position on the principles of "free government" and "good government," recognized that the "consent" of the American Colonies to Acts of the British Parliament justly regulating the matters of common interest was a "consent from the necessity of the case and a regard to the mutual interests of both countries," and claimed the rights of "life, liberty and property" without reference to the British Constitution or the American Charters. Jefferson tells us that throughout the period of nearly two years which intervened between the assembling of the Congress and the promulgation of the Declaration the principles of the law of nature