The Declaration of Independents

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for the people to set aside blind loyalty to parties, and to assume among their fellow citizens the equal station to which reason, conscience, and community entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to unite.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all people are endowed with the capacity to think freely, that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, and that partisanship destructive of liberty and common good must be corrected by the people themselves.

That whenever a party system becomes divisive of the public trust, it is the right of the people to seek independence of thought and vote, laying a foundation on principles most likely to secure their safety, prosperity, and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that entrenched systems long established should not be changed for light or transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that humanity is more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the habits to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses, neglect, and division reveals a design to reduce the people under partisanship absolute, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such allegiance, and to provide new guards for their future unity.

We, therefore, the Independents of these United States, appealing to the judgment of our fellow citizens, do solemnly publish and declare, that we are, and of right ought to be, free to act outside the bondage of partisan rule; and that as free people we pledge to one another our commitment to community before party, truth before politics, and service before self.