Fellow citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today?

What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? Frederick Douglass, 1852

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Martin Luther King, 1963

"We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 1848

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, political parties are instituted among Men, deriving their powers from the consent of the members of those parties, That whenever any political party becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of those members to separate themselves from it, and to institute a new party, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that affiliations with such political parties long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to

suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by separating from such political parties to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations by both major, political parties, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce the American public under the absolute Despotism of the Federal government in Washington, D.C., it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off their allegiances to such parties, and to form a new political party for their and their childrens future security. The Tea Party Website.