Abstractions In Power-Writing

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(OED 2536) Nearly three hundred years later in 1785
the word power carried the same meaning of control, strength, and
force, "power to produce an effect, supposes power not to produce it;
otherwise it is not power but necessity" (OED 2536). This definition
explains how the power government or social institutions rests in
their ability to command people, rocks, colonies to do something they
otherwise would not do. To make the people pay taxes. To make the
rocks form into a fence. To make the colonists honor the King. The
colonialists adopt this interpretation of power. They see power as a
cruel force that has wedded them to a King who has "a history of
repeated injuries and usurptions." The framers of the Declaration of
Independence also believe powers given by God to the people must not
be usurped. The conflict between these spheres of
power the colonists believe, justifies their rebellion.
The uses of the word power set the tone ...

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"He has affected to render
the Military independent of and superior to Civil power" (Wills
377).
These two different uses of the word power transform the
meaning and tone of the Declaration of Independence. The meaning
changes from just a Declaration of independence from Britain because
of various violations of tax laws, military expenditures, and
colonists' rights; to a fundamental disagreement about power. Whether
the King or civil authorities have a right to power. The colonists
believe in the decentralization of power. The British support a
centralized monarchy. The colonists believe power should flow up from
the people to the rulers. ...

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