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be found only upon the general good. The aim of all
political association is the preservation of the natural
rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security
and resistance to oppression.”
In the years since then, other countries have written
similar documents to declare their independence. In
1848, the people of Hungary issued their own
Declaration of Independence. At the time, the
Hungarians were ruled by Austrian Emperor Franz
Joseph I. However, the armies of Franz Joseph soon
crushed the Hungarian rebellion. Hungary would not
win its freedom from Austria until after World War I,
when the armies of America and the democracies of
Europe defeated Austria-Hungary on the battlefield, and
the empire was broken into independent states.
For centuries, the people of Japan had been ruled by
emperors and dictators. Following World War II, when
the Japanese were defeated by the armies of America
and the other free nations,
the people of Japan wanted
to write their own constitu-
tion—a set of laws to gov-
ern themselves.
In 1946, the authors of
Japan’s constitution drew
their inspiration from the
words of Thomas Jefferson.
Indeed, the Japanese consti-
33
The Words of Thomas Jefferson
Make Connections
Philadelphia printer John
Dunlap made copies of the
declaration on the night of July
4, 1776. At least 25 of those
copies are known to exist today.
One of them was found in a
cheap glass frame at a flea mar-
ket and later sold at auction for
$8.4 million.