Why is the Declaration of Independence important?

Why this is the answer

The Declaration of Independence matters for two reasons, and the four official answers divide between them. The first reason is political. The colonists had been at war with Great Britain since 1775, and on July 4, 1776, they adopted the Declaration, which announced that the colonies were free and independent states. That act created the United States of America and turned the thirteen colonies into the thirteen original states. It is the reason Independence Day falls on the Fourth of July. The answer "it says America is free from British control" points here. The second reason is the one that outlasted the war. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration, opened its argument with the claim that all men are created equal and are endowed with unalienable rights, among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Unalienable rights are rights no government can change or take away. He went on to say that governments are created to secure those rights and draw their just powers from the consent of the governed, and that when a government works against those ends, the people have the right to alter or abolish it. Jefferson then set out a list of the colonists' complaints against the king of England to show that this point had been reached. That is where the other three answers come from. "It says all people are created equal" restates the principle of equality. "It identifies inherent rights" means the same thing as unalienable rights: rights people are born with. "It identifies individual freedoms" points to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. You need one answer. The trap is crediting the Declaration with jobs that belong elsewhere, such as creating the three branches of government, which is the Constitution's work, or with later milestones like ending the Civil War or giving women the vote. Put another way, the Declaration is a birth announcement with a statement of values attached, the moment a country appears and the reasons it gives for existing.