Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam (1967)
Editor’s note: This speech by Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered at the Riverside Church in Manhattan precisely one year to the day he was assassinated, was entitled Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam. King was widely excoriated by mainstream media at the time for characterizing U.S. involvement in the war as a grave mistake, and […]
Haitian Declaration of Independence (1804)
Editor’s Note: On January 1, 1804, after a protracted war with forces sent by Napoleon Bonaparte to quell its uprising, Haiti (formerly Saint-Domingue) declared its independence from France. It became the second colony in the Americas, following the United States, to make a formal break with its ruling country. Penned by Boisrond-Tonnerre — who composed it […]
Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms (1775)
Editor’s note: Thomas Jefferson took his first stab at bona fide ‘Declaration creation’ with this document. Issued on July 6, 1775 by the Second Continental Congress, this declaration presaged in some ways the Declaration that the same Congress would proclaim on July 4, 1776. Credit for this declaration’s more temperate final version is given to John Dickenson, […]
