ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the Declaration of Independence,

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a teenager's last-ditch effort to becoming her own person.

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Yeah. That.

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All right, give this excerpt a read.

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[ mumbles ]

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All right, and the question:

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Why are we doing all of this mumbling?

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Second question:

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Which of the following quotes from the Declaration of Independence

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most accurately reflects the main idea of the excerpt?

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All right, and here are your potential answers.

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[ mumbles ]

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All right. Let's see if we can parse out

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what Mr. Paine is going for here.

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He writes that the king has had "a long and violent

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abuse of power" and that

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"the good people of this country are grievously oppressed."

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So no hard feelings against the monarchy, right there, T-Paine?

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All right, well, let's see which answer best matches this

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rage against the king.

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Is the quote from the Declaration of Independence that

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most accurately reflects this sentiment B -

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"...that they are endowed by their Creator with certain

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unalienable Rights."?

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Actually, many scholars think this guarantee of life,

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liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was inspired

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by John Locke, not Thomas Paine.

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Same goes for that whole idea about deriving power

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"from the consent of the governed."

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So that bumps out B and D.

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What about C?

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"... a decent respect to the opinions of mankind

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requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation."

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Huh. Well that's just saying that if you're gonna declare independence,

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you should probably have some good reasons

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and then explain them to everybody else.

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So it's not C, either.

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Which means that the quote that most accurately reflects

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the main idea of the excerpt is A -

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"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive

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of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."

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In the excerpt, Paine says the King's abuses of power

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gave the colonists "an undoubted privilege... to reject it."

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In the Declaration of Independence, this was rephrased as the

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people's right to alter or abolish it.

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So the correct answer is A.

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And it's clear that Thomas sure had a way of

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bringing the "Paine" to the British government.

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[ mumbling with British accent ]

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[ animal groaning ]

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