The Declaration of Independence after 250 Years: Success or Failure?
by David Hart

http://davidmhart.com/wordpress/the-declaration-of-independence-after-250-years-success-or-failure/

A Declaration of Independence from the State, by David Hart

2026 is the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence from the British Monarchy and Empire. After a successful war of independence, it was followed by the creation of the American Constitution which was a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to limit the power of the state and to keep it limited for an extended period of time. We are currently living with the sad consequences of the failure of both documents to secure individual liberty in all its dimensions (personal, economic, political, and legal).

The American Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and Federal Constitution was not the only attempt to do this. I have collected 30 or so other attempts into an anthology: On Limiting the Power of the State: A Collection of Petitions, Charters, Decrees, and Declarations of Rights and Liberties (1215-1848). Edited by David M. Hart (The Pittwater Free Press, 2024) [Online]. Since these documents chronicle a long history of failure to secure liberty for extended periods of time we seem doomed to repeat the exericise every generation of two, the need for which Thomas Jefferson himself seemed to recognise. In this sad realisation I have drawn up a new Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights as the foundation for the next stage of this endeavour, until someone in the future is forced to repeat the exercise yet again.

This is not the first “Declaration of Independence” I have drawn up In a more light-hearted vein in July 2025 I “translated” (with the help of my friend and colleague ChatGPT) the American Declaration into Australian English in the hope this might help statist-minded Australians to see the light. However this, I would argue, is a forlorn hope as the Australian political culture has from its inception up until the present been very hostile to the natural rights theory which lies at the heart of the American Declaration and Bill of Rights. It has been much more receptive to Benthamite and utilitarian notions (whether “liberal” or “socialist”) of top-down coercive government and bureaucratic “improvement” of public welfare.

This, my second effort, was designed to radicalise the declaration by basing it less on Thomas Jefferson and more on Lysander Spooner. This time I also drew up a corresponding Bill of Rights which drew upon both the theory of Spooner and Ayn Rand (at least as the latter was embodied in the Workers Party Platform of 1975 with its empahsis on “the fundamental principle” which was emblazoned on every page in order to drive the point home). See my edition of the selected works of Lysander Spooner [Online] and the Workers Party Platform [Online].

Here is my “Declaration of Independence” and my “Bill of Rights” (the “Pocket Edition” and the complete version):

http://davidmhart.com/wordpress/a-declaration-of-independence-from-the-state/