Abandonment of legal precedence...

[Jim Choate]

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. 
 
     We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are 
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with 
certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, 
and the Pursuit of Happiness--That to secure these Rights, 
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers 
from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of 
Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of 
the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new 
Government, laying its foundation on such Principles and 
organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most 
likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.  Prudence, indeed, 
will dictate that Governments long established should not be 
changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all 
Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, 
while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by 
abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.  But when a 
long train of Abuses and Ursurpations, pursuing invariably the 
same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute 
Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such 
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. 
Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such 
is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former 
Systems of Government.  The history of the present King of Great 
Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all 
having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny 
over these States.  To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a 
candid world. 

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The *entire* point of the forming of the United States over 200 years ago
was the specific intent to break with precedence, in particular *English*
precedence, and find a new way.

[personaly, every time I hear somebody mention English commen law as a
justification to deny the Constitution I want to slap the holy shit out
of them]

In short (paraphrased),

I took the road less travelled, and it made all the difference.

                                     -don't remember-


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