Wat is de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring?
Op 4 juli 1776 nam het Amerikaanse Congres de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring aan: de grondlegging van de VS.
Met die Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring verklaarden de 13 Britse koloniën op het Noord-Amerikaanse continent zich onafhankelijk van het Britse Rijk en verenigden ze zich als zelfstandige staten onder de natie VS.

In totaal 56 mensen ondertekenden op 4 juli 1776 de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring. De eerste handtekening was van John Hancock, en de beroemdste is die van Benjamin Franklin, die bekendstaat als de uitvinder van de bliksemafleider.
Voordat de VS echt de Verenigde Staten werden, vielen de 13 koloniën onder de Britse koning.
De ontevredenheid over het Britse imperium aan de andere kant van de Atlantische Oceaan bereikte een hoogtepunt in 1763, toen het Britse parlement nieuwe belastingen invoerde om de dure Zevenjarige Oorlog tegen Frankrijk te bekostigen.
In 1764 nam het Engelse parlement de Sugar Act aan, en een jaar later de Stamp Act, waardoor zo goed als alle handelsproducten extra belast werden.
De conflicten tussen de kolonisten en de Britten duurden voort, en in 1775 brak de Amerikaanse Onafhankelijkheidsoorlog echt uit toen Britse soldaten en revolutionaire kolonisten tegenover elkaar stonden bij Lexington en Concord bij Boston.

Op 16 december 1773 bestormde een groep kolonisten verkleed als indianen drie Britse vrachtschepen met thee waarop een hoge accijns werd geheven. De rebellen smeten 342 kisten thee in de haven van Boston. De actie was een protest tegen de accijnsverhogingen door de Britten en deed het conflict tussen de kolonisten en de Britten oplaaien.
Met het aannemen van de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring was de Amerikaanse Revolutie een feit.
In 1783 zegevierden de kolonisten over de Britten. Daarmee hadden ze zich politiek losgemaakt van het Britse Rijk en waren de VS als nieuwe staat geboren.
Wie schreven de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring?
56 mensen stonden achter het manifest
De Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring werd in Philadephia ondertekend door 56 mensen die de 13 verschillende koloniën in Amerika vertegenwoordigden.
De voornaamste auteur achter de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring was de advocaat Thomas Jefferson, de latere derde president van het land.
De zogeheten founding fathers waren een groep rijke notabelen. Ze waren hoogopgeleid en op de hoogte van de modernste Europese filosofie en natuurwetenschap.

Thomas Jefferson was de voornaamste auteur van de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring. Hij werd later de derde president van de VS, van 1801 tot 1809.
De medeondertekenaars verenigden zich in het Congres, een politiek orgaan dat de rebellerende koloniën bestuurde.
In 1776 gaf het Congres vijf mensen de opdracht om de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring te schrijven: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston en Thomas Jefferson.
Tegenwoordig worden tot de founding fathers van de VS meestal de eerste vijf presidenten gerekend – George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison en James Monroe – omdat zij zo’n actieve rol speelden in de Amerikaanse Revolutie.
Want zijn de grondbeginselen in de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring?
Democratische principes gaven het volk macht
De Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring was gestoeld op idealen van volkssoevereiniteit en democratie. De politieke macht mag in een staat niet worden uitgeoefend zonder de steun van het volk.
Deze principes waren destijds vrijwel uniek, en de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring wordt door velen gezien als het begin van de moderne westerse democratie.
De beginselen in de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring werden in 1776 geschreven in navolging van het revolutionaire pamflet Common Sense, waarin Thomas Paine schrijft dat het Amerikaanse volk moreel en politiek verplicht is te vechten voor onafhankelijkheid.
Paines revolutionaire idee van een nieuw, vrij Amerika inspireerde Thomas Jefferson toen hij een jaar later de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring schreef.
De Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring begint met de inmiddels wereldberoemde woorden: ‘Alle mensen zijn gelijk geschapen, en door hun Schepper begiftigd met zekere onvervreemdbare rechten, waaronder: leven, vrijheid en het nastreven van geluk’.
En daarop volgt: ‘Dat, teneinde deze rechten te garanderen, regeringen onder de mensen worden ingesteld, die hun rechtmatige bevoegdheden ontlenen aan de instemming der geregeerden; dat, telkens wanneer enige regeringsvorm met deze doeleinden in strijd komt, het volk het recht heeft hem te veranderen of teniet te doen en een nieuwe regering in te stellen’.
Hoe sterk staat de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring nu?
Idealen onder druk
De politieke werkelijkheid in de VS heeft altijd het moeilijk gemaakt de idealen uit de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring waar te maken. Toen Thomas Jefferson de mooie woorden over vrijheid voor iedereen schreef, had hij zelf slaven.
Tijdens de eerste bijna 200 jaar werden in de Amerikaanse politiek de zwarte kiezers onderdrukt. Pas met de Civil Rights Acts in 1964-1965 werden de VS pas echt democratisch.
Veel politiek denkers menen dat de democratische grondbeginselen in de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring nu onder druk staan, vooral na Donald Trumps turbulente presidentstermijn van 2016 tot 2020.
Door beschuldigingen van verkiezingsfraude, dreigementen met rechtszaken en niet in de laatste plaats de bestorming van het Capitool in januari 2021 verkeren de VS in een democratische crisis waarbij Thomas Jefferson zich omdraait in zijn graf.
De politicologen Steven Levitsky en Daniel Ziblatt schrijven in hun boek How Democracies Die uit 2018: ‘Een democratie sterft niet in de handen van generaals, maar door gekozen leiders die het proces dat hen aan de macht bracht ondermijnen’.
De originele Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring
De volledige Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring in de originele taal
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. 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. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.