# The Declaration of Independence

Legitimate power derives from the consent of the governed — the oldest document in the library, and the premise the rest of the lineage keeps rediscovering.

## Summary

Adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, the Declaration announces the separation of the thirteen American colonies from Britain and grounds it in an argument, not just a grievance: governments exist to secure unalienable rights, they derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and when a government becomes destructive of those ends the people have the right to alter or abolish it and to institute new government. The bulk of the text is evidence — a long enumeration of abuses by a distant, unaccountable power that taxed, surveilled, and legislated over people who had no say in it.

## Why it matters

This is the oldest document in the library, and it states the principle everything downstream keeps returning to: a system is legitimate only by the consent of the people inside it, and when it turns extractive they may rightfully build a replacement. That is the civic form of the argument the [Independent Internet](/wiki/web4.md) makes about infrastructure — when the network answers to someone else, control can be handed back. The Declaration dissolves the old system; the "new Guards for their future security" it promises are the architecture of [the Constitution](/wiki/us-constitution.md) that followed.

> Part of the AP0110.ORG source library. See the [wiki overview](/wiki.md).

---
*Full source text: [read the original document](/docs/declaration-of-independence.md).*

---

## Backlinks

Pages that link here:

- [The Constitution of the United States](/wiki/us-constitution.md) — Governance as architecture: power divided, limited, written down, and amendable — with the Bill of Rights guaranteeing individuals against the system itself.
- [Independent Internet (Web 4.0)](/wiki/web4.md) — The web forgot who it was for. Web 4.0 — the Independent Internet — is a resilient, self-hosted internet people own and control. Explore the research.