What does we have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence mean?

The Preamble is, in my opinion, the most eloquently worded statement on how government should function in relation to its citizens that has ever been written. It is, in essence, a notification to the world that ‘these united Colonies’ have something to declare.

The Body is the list of grievances which the colonists had ‘suffered’ at the hands of the King. They are justification for that which the colonists need to declare.

The Conclusion is the declaration itself. Short and sweet, it says in no uncertain terms that these colonies can do all “Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.”

Explanation: