The Declaration of Independence: An Example of the Power of Words (aka Content)

Words Have Changed the World

Words are powerful.

  • The power of words has saved lives and taken lives.
  • The power of words has created opportunities and shut doors forever on people’s hopes and dreams.
  • The power of words has attracted huge crowds and given leaders unbelievable influence and also stripped leaders of their once powerful kingdoms.

It isn’t an exaggeration to say that the power of words have literally changed the story line of history over and over again.

The Declaration of Independence: The Power of Words to Rally Support

picture of the Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence is one example.

It was the power of those words and the actions that went with them that established the United States of America.

Those words weren’t just used as a formal legal document laying out the colonists claims against the King of England.

Those words weren’t just an attempt to gather military and financial support from other countries.

It was the power of those words which rallied those thirteen colonies to do the impossible and overthrow the rule of King George III.

That is the power of the right words used at the right time. 

This isn’t just true of political revolutions. It’s been true in the business world too…

(If you have never read The Declaration of Independence – or it’s been a long while – then keep reading. I have a transcript of it at the end of this post.)

<-=–=- AD: Continue reading below -=–=->

<-=–=- AD -=–=->

The Power of Words (aka Content) to Change the Future of Your Company or Your Industry

What I want you to realize is that the power of words (or what we call “content”) could literally change the trajectory of your company, if you can learn how to harness them.

Every industry has a group of people who are looking for someone to use words to create content that resonates with them and inspires them to new heights.

The question is: Will YOUR company be the one that rallies them?

If you look at the individuals and companies that have successfully used content marketing, you’ll discover that they tapped into the fears, goals, needs, and desires of their prospects and they inspired them to overcome their fears, accomplish their goals, and meet the needs and desires they had.

It was all done with content – or the right words used at the right time.

How Do You Create Content That Is a Rally Cry for Your Prospects?

If you’re wondering HOW to actually create this type of content, it’s not a secret. But it will take time, effort, and possibly money.

How do you create this kind of content?

You MUST know your prospects, customers, and industry.

  • You must understand their frustrations.
  • You must understand their hopes.
  • You must understand their desires.
  • You must understand their priorities.
  • You must understand their problems.
  • You must understand what keeps them up at night.
  • You must understand their lingo.
  • You must understand the real solutions your competition is offering them.
  • You must understand how your competition is seen in their eyes.
  • You must understand what has been tried and what has not been tried in your industry.
  • Etc.

In other words, you must understand as much as you can about them and your industry!

Many of your competitors will never take the time, effort, or spend the money it takes to do this. 

And that’s good news for you.

Because if you do, then your content will have an influence like no other content in your industry.

When you understand your prospects and customers like no other company in your industry, then it will become clear to you the kind of content that will resonate with them.

When you understand them and your industry on an intimate level, and create content that speaks to them from this understanding, then you and your company will experience the true power of words.

I hope this post was inspiring for you.

But more than that, I hope that it spurs you to action.

Happy 4th of July!
P.S. The transcript of The Declaration of Independence is below.

<-=–=- AD: Continue reading below -=–=->

Starbucks and Enchiladas

Some of the products I am offering on sale are cheaper than a mocha and muffin from Starbucks (as low as $4.99 for a single product). And I also have a “Whole Enchilada” deal, which allows you to get all four products for an additional amount off the 50% deal.

You can check out the offers below…

<-=–=- AD -=–=->

Have You Ever Read The Declaration of Independence?

Many of us have heard of The Declaration of Independence, but how many of us have actually read it recently?

If you haven’t read it in awhile, then below is your chance to read the full text of the Declaration of Independence…

Full Transcript of The Declaration of Independence 


IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

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 usurpations, 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.

  • He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
  • He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
  • He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
  • He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
  • He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
  • He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
  • He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
  • He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
  • He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
  • He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
  • He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
  • He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
  • He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
  • For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
  • For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
  • For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
  • For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
  • For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
  • For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
  • For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
  • For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
  • For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
  • He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
  • He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
  • He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
  • He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
  • He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.


The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

(NOTE: I have bolded and bulleted some of the sections above in an attempt to make it easier to read.)

Source: Archives.org

Scott Aughtmon
I’m author of the book 51 Content Marketing Hacks. I am also a regular contributor to ContentMarketingInstitute.com and I am the person behind the popular infographic 21 Types of Content We Crave.

I’m a business strategist, consultant, content creation specialist, and speaker. I’ve been studying effective marketing and business methods (both online and offline) since 1999.

===> If you would like to see ways that we could work together, then please click here to learn more.

NEW BOOK: 51 Content Marketing Hacks

2016-SBT-Book-NOM2-square-300x50-blue

Are You Just Creating More Fodder for the Online Content Wasteland?

If you think you can just post average, “me too” content and see results, then you’re fooling yourself.

You can learn some "success clues" that you can use to help your content to stand out. Click here to learn more.

Listen to Segment of CMI’s Podcast I Was Featured On