law of nature and of nations there is a universal right of free
statehood which pertains to all communities on the face of the earth
within territorial limits of suitable size for the development and
operation of a just public sentiment.

So complete and universal are the principles of government by just
public sentiment and of free statehood that, according to the
Declaration, even when all the people of a free state are meeting
together to alter or abolish a form of government which has become
destructive of the ends of its institution, as it is declared they may
rightfully do, their right to form a new government is not absolute so
that they can rightfully do whatever the majority wills, but is
limited by this universal common law, so that they can rightfully
institute only a new form of government whose foundation principles
and mode of organization are such "as to them shall seem most likely
to effect their safety and happiness"--that is, to secure the
unalienable rights of individuals to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.

The declaration of the universal right of free statehood is
accompanied, in the Declaration, by the claim that the Colonies, as
free states, had always been in political "connection" with the State
of Great Britain. The concluding part of the Declaration reads:

"We, therefore,... 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."

In this it was necessarily implied that the Colonies had always been