The Declaration of Independence is one of my favorite documents. In the course of learning about it, I have discovered that individual words and phrases were carefully selected to convey the meaning intended. Words that, if one did not know the historical meaning and context, would not mean very much.
I came across a pamphlet written in 1648, during the English Civil War (1640-1651). I can't verify that Thomas Jefferson read this particular pamphlet, but the two phrases below are remarkably similar in wording and meaning.
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,"---From the Declaration
This is from the Pamphlet "The Mournful Cries of Many Thousand Poor Tradesmen (Anonymous)
"O Parliament men, and soldiers! Necessity dissolves all laws and government, and Hunger will break through stone walls, tender mothers will sooner devour you, than the fruit of their own womb, and hunger regards no swords nor cannons. It may be some great oppressors intends tumults that they may escape in a crowd, but your food may then be wanting as well as ours, and your arms will be hard diet. O hark, hark at our doors how our children cry Bread, bread, bread, and we now with bleeding hearts, cry, once more to you, pity, pity, an oppressed enslaved people: carry our cries in the large petition to the Parliament, and tell them if they be still deaf the tears of the oppressed will wash away the foundations of their houses. Amen, Amen so be it."
Notice the similarities? King George III would be very familiar with this language when he first read the Declaration! Jefferson channeled the writings of John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, among others. Why not this one too?
Here is another post I did on the importance of the word "necessity" in the Declaration.
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