America was founded as a colony of Great Britain, to which, Great Britain provided military as well as material aid to the colonies which helped to sustain and strengthen the colonists. Not too surprisingly, in return for such aid, logistics, troops, and whatnot, Great Britain came to the point in which it demanded the payment of certain specific taxes from the colonists, in which the colonists were resentful of such taxes being imposed upon them, especially in consideration that they had no representation in Parliament. Neither did the colonists appreciate the Quartering Act, which allowed standing armies to be quartered in barracks or public housing and for the colonists to thereby support by taxation these troops, ostensibly stationed in America, so as to protect and defend its borders.
The colonists considered themselves to be part and parcel of the British empire, and thereby saw themselves as having the "Rights of Englishmen", to which, although, Great Britain has no written Bill of Rights, they have through the Magna Carta and their traditions stretching over centuries established laws that impressed upon British subjects the rights and protections of English citizenship. It was this belief that permitted the colonists to appeal to both parliament and King George III in regards to their disputes on taxation, representation, and standing armies.
Unfortunately, the colonist's appeals to parliament and especially to King George III were effectively of no avail, forcing the colonists to abandon any hopes that their rights of Englishmen meant effectively anything in regards to them, and thereby setting the stage to make their appeal to a higher power, our Creator Himself. The colonists, reasoned that by depending upon power that originated in the hands of parliament and of the king, this would always mean, that they would be servants of or subservient to the State, to which, by being so, they would or would not receive in return the liberties that they felt that they were due by their humanity.
Therefore the Declaration of Independence, did two very clever things when it was written by Thomas Jefferson, in which, one of these was to declare that governments are instituted amongst men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, and when such a government becomes destructive of those ends it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and that the facts of such a claim should be declared to the world as proof that such a government has lost its legitimacy and has become in its object, tyrannical. Additionally, our Declaration, went above the hands of man, went above human laws, by declaring that each one of us is born with unalienable rights endowed by our Creator, amongst which consist of but are not limited to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and in order to secure these unalienable rights governments are instituted amongst men.
The above changed the dynamic of our government into one that believed that the true function of government was to secure these unalienable rights amongst men, and that above all, this was its primary mission. This meant in effect, that any government destructive of our unalienable rights was by definition, illegitimate, for trying to usurp or to suppress the unalienable rights that each of us has been gifted by our Creator. These unalienable rights means in effect, that governments and the people that help run or run this government, are subservient themselves to these unalienable rights bestowed upon us by our Creator.