• Within fifty years of the drafting of the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson and others in 1776, some twenty other independence movements in Europe and the Americas had issued similar proclamations. The rapid spread of this new type of political declaration testifies to the close connections among revolutionary movements in this period. Many of the later declarations of independence modeled themselves self-consciously on the language and arguments of the 1776 text, excerpted below, but they also reflected the unique circumstances in which they were created, as demonstrated by the Venezuelan declaration, also excerpted below.

A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, July 4, 1776

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them 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. . . . The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an Absolute Tyranny over these States.”

Venezuelan Declaration of Independence, July 5, 1811

“In the Name of the All-powerful God, We, the Representatives of the united Provinces . . . , forming the American Confederation of Venezuela, in the South Continent, in Congress assembled, considering the full and absolute possession of our Rights, which we recovered justly and legally from the 19th of April, 1810, in consequence of the occurrences in Bayona,* and the occupation of the Spanish Throne by conquest, and the succession of a new Dynasty, constituted without our consent, . . . calling on the SUPREME BEING to witness the justice of our proceedings and the rectitude of our intentions, do implore his divine and celestial help; and ratifying, at the moment in which we are born to the dignity which his Providence restores to us, the desire we have of living and dying free, and of believing and defending the holy Catholic and Apostolic Religion of Jesus Christ. We, therefore, in the name and by the will and authority which we hold from the virtuous People of Venezuela, DO declare solemnly to the world, that its united Provinces are, and ought to be, from this day, by act and right, Free, Sovereign, and Independent States; and that they are absolved from every submission and dependence on the Throne of Spain . . . and that a free and independent State, thus constituted, has full power to take that form of Government which may be conformable to the general will of the People, to declare war, make peace, form alliances, regulate treaties of commerce, limits, and navigation; and to do and transact every act, in like manner as other free and independent States.”

Sources: The Declaration of Independence (1776); Interesting Official Documents Relating to the United Provinces of Venezuela (London: Longman and Co., 1812), pp. 3, 18–19.

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS