Why The Declaration of Independence?

When I was in school, seemingly the only reason for the
Declaration of Independence was to proclaim our
independence from the King for the fact that the King
forced us to house his troops. House and feed.
That was so many years ago that the above is my main
memory of studying the Declaration of Independence. The
rest of that document was never covered.

Now, something has driven me to inquire of the oft quoted
phrase "government of the people, by the people, for the
people," a thread that runs through much of our history.
A little research on the web has found this phrase absent
from those documents in which I thought it resided.
Instead, the phrase comes from the Emmancipation
Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Prior to finding
the phrase in the Emmancipation Proclamation, the
Declaration of Independence had already been read and its
contents suddenly became a little more relevant.

The Declaration of Independence, surprising to me, gives
a detailed account of the abuses of the King against his
subjects, specifically, 'his subjects' that had come to
the new world for a better life. Also surprising, as I
read the list, was how many of the abuses had a ring of
immediacy, were current with the present administration
that we had hired to run our country.
Following is a list of 18 grievances the colonists had
against the King and as it appears in the Declaration.
They thought these grievances sufficient to dissolve
their association with their Mother-country and become
an independent body. You be the judge of whether you see
anything familiar.

-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.

I would call your attention to items number 2, 3, 4, 8,
9, 10, 12, 16, 17 and 13 in particular. Perhaps given
sufficient time, the entire 18 articles may come to pass,
again.