A Citizen's Declaration of Independence for July 4, 2026

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for the people to dissolve the bands which have subjected them to a government which has burdened and oppressed them, and to restore the powers and rights to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all people 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 the people, 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 upon such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to seem to them most likely to them to effect their future 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 shown that people 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 the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under an absolute despotism it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient suffering of the American people, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their present government.

The history of the government of the United States in this century, especially under this president, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all tending to the establishment of a corporate despotism over the American people. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

On repeated occasions, the current government has manipulated elections from which officials have assumed their offices.

A government whose character is thus marked by actions that exhibit such arrogance is unfit to be the government of a free people.

Its current president has allowed his subordinates to suggest a postponement of the constitutionally required date of a presidential election, a step unprecedented in United States history, even in times of war and civil rebellion. While doing so, he has suggested that no further national elections will be necessary.

The current government has repeatedly undermined access to equal voting rights, and has promoted the power of the dollar to replace the voice of the people in elections.

It has compromised the security of the people in their persons, homes, workplaces, schools, travels, papers, and effects by sponsoring actions that harass the people with both open and clandestine searches and surveillance.

It has denied immigrants their rights under asylum law and the Constitution, subjecting them to arbitrary arrest and cruel and unusual punishment.

It has refused detainees under its authority access to counsel and security from physical mistreatment, in violation of international covenant, the supreme law of the land, and the English-speaking tradition of law dating from Magna Carta.

As has been the case for nearly two generations, it has failed to erect adequate safeguards against domestic terrorism and the massacre of children and young people in our schools and colleges.

It has long evaded international covenants for the protection of the environment, the humane treatment of prisoners of war, the security of nations from invasion, and the prevention of war crimes, thereby subverting the law of nations and the supreme law of the land. The current president’s actions in this respect are especially cruel and malign.

It has acted to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

It has weakened enforcement of environmental laws most wholesome and necessary to the public good, has compromised others, and has allowed corporations to poison the environment on which the public’s health, prosperity, and well-being depend.

It has hollowed out the nation’s civil service and established bribery as standard government practice.

It has further endangered public health by weakening legislation that would remedy the people’s woefully inadequate access to essential medical care.

It has reduced benefits and medical care to veterans of current and previous wars and their families.

It has created a population that lags behind the rest of the developed world in educational attainment, life expectancy, access to decent housing, and prevention of infant and maternal mortality.

It has eaten away at the substance of ordinary people by denying them a living wage, and initiated class warfare in our nation by promulgating laws and taxes that favor the already wealthy at the expense of the people at large.

It has failed to protect the people’s hard-won savings from obscure and deceptive investments, and usurious mortgages on their homes, thereby undermining their material security and driving hard-working citizens into the street.

It has lavished financial support on failed investment banks and corporations while denying the working class, the poor, and the jobless minimal support for their existence.

It has at times deprived federal workers pledged to protect the nation’s security the right to bargain collectively to secure fair compensation for their labors.

It has promoted international trade regulations that deprive laborers of rights protected by international agreement.

Through economic policies that have extended over a generation, it has plunged one-eighth of its population and one-fourth of its children into a permanent state of poverty and hunger.

It has undermined the security of future generations and burdened them with debt by turning record federal surpluses into unprecedented deficits.

It has on occasion neglected to provide its troops at war personal equipment that is necessary to their safety and comfort in the field, and violated the terms of their original enlistments.

It has promoted the development of weapons systems beyond any rational military requirement, and equipped its armed forces with weapons dangerous to their users.

In like manner, it has evaded the obligations of international law and common decency by holding all humanity hostage to an existentially perilous nuclear arms race.

It has distracted the nation from the necessary struggle against terrorism and arms proliferation by initiating offensive war abroad without sufficient cause and has subjected civilians abroad to the horrors of combat, in violation of international covenant, its own rules of engagement, and the supreme law of the land.

In defiance of international law, it has threatened neighboring and allied nations with invasion and annexation, and misused our tax money to finance and abet genocide directed against a foreign people.

It has replaced the world’s respect for the United States of America with apprehension, contempt, and fear.

In every stage of these oppressions, which our current president has encouraged and promoted, the American people have petitioned for redress in most humble terms; our repeated petitions and supplications have been answered chiefly by repeated delays and indifference. A government whose character is thus marked by actions that exhibit such arrogance is unfit to be the government of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to its individual members. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts to extend an unwarranted jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our common heritage here. We have appealed to their sense of decency; and we have conjured them, by the ties of common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. More often than not, they, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and common citizenship.

We, therefore, the people of the United States of America, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do solemnly publish and declare, that all political connection between ourselves and the present federal administration is hereby abandoned. And for the support of this declaration and the restoration of our liberty, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.