alt.education

>The Declaration of Independence is most definitely the founding document
>for this country.

No.

> All subsequent acts, including the Constitution, are
>predicated on the principles espoused in the Declaration.

Absolutely not. The Constitution was in effect a bloodless
revolutionary coup against the government established to implement the
Declaration. But the Declaration itself had no legal significance.
The resolution of independence approved on 2 July 1776 made the
colonies separate states. The DofI was just the explanation for this
resolution. It was the Articles of Confederation that bound the
colonies together into a quasi-nation, more akin to the modern
European Union than to the United States after the Constitution. If
the colonies were bound together before the Articles, then arguably
they were bound together before the D of I, by the formation of the
FIRST Continental Congress.

lojbab