"_When, in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation._" The first official utterance of America is based on _human necessity_--not the necessity of princes or powers. It is the utterance of a people, not a nation. It invokes first Nature and then Nature's God as lawgivers. It asks independence and equality--in the same phrase; the habit of nations, to enslave or be enslaved, is not to be observed in the New World. And finally "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind"; the first utterance of America is addressed not to the nations of the world, but to the men and women who inhabit them. _Human--people--Nature--Nature's God--mankind._ These are the words boldly written across the map of America. A century and a half of change have not robbed one of them of their power--because they were not fad-words, not the catchwords of a revolution; they were words with cold clear meanings--and they destroyed feudalism in Europe for a hundred and sixty years. The practical application of the preamble is this: whenever we have spoken to the people of other nations, as we did in the Declaration, we have been successful; we have failed only when we have addressed ourselves to governments. The time is rapidly coming when our only communication with Europe must be over the heads of its rulers, to the people. It does not seem practical; but we shall see later that, for us, it has always been good politics. _The Logic of Freedom_ The next passage in the Declaration is the one with all the quotations. There can be little harm in reprinting it: