Read the following excerpt from the Declaration of Independence:
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce [a people] 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...."
How do the authors of the Declaration best use deductive reasoning based on the idea that the colonists have a right to form a new government?
A. They first establish the idea that oppressed people have a right and duty to replace their government with a better one, and then argue that British rule of the colonies is one such example.
B. They state that the current British king has caused great harm to the American colonies, and then show how the king's actions reflect the actions of many tyrants throughout history.
C. They provide universally accepted examples of what kinds of acts qualify as acts of tyranny, and then show that the current king of Great Britain has indeed committed these acts.
D. They first establish the idea that declaring one's intentions is a decent and expected measure, and then proceed to declare the intentions of the colonies to establish a new government.
