2012-09-25

Catalan Declaration of Independence: A Draft

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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 Human Rights entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

I hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed 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 Catalonia, for three centuries; and such is now the necessity which constrains her to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of Spain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the absolute Negation of Catalonia. To prove this, let the 10 main Facts since 1975 be submitted to a candid world.

  • He has betrayed our will of an equal union inside Spain.
  • He has diminished our political autonomy year after year. 
  • He has refused to pass a prudent proposal of reformation of our main Law.
  • He has denied the right of our people to decide by a sentence of the Constitutional Court in 2010.
  • He has treated Catalan citizens as second class citizens.
  • He has kept on contempt and harassment against our language and culture.
  • He has erected a multitude of New central Offices, that eat out our substance.
  • He has imposed Taxes on us without our Consent.
  • He has made a much smaller investment in our infrastructure.
  • He has kept a fiscal deficit equivalent annually of 8% of wealth creation that now threatens our social cohesion and economic progress.

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 Kingdom 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 Spanish 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 history and unconsented union. 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 will of Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Not Friends in Oppresion, in Freedom Friends.

I, therefore, as a member of the Catalan National Assembly, appealing to the world for the rectitude of my intentions, solemnly publish and declare, That Catalonia ought to be next Free and Independent State of the European Union; that she will be Absolved from all Allegiance to the Spanish Crown, and that all political connection between her and the Kingdom of Spain, ought to be totally dissolved; and that as a Free and Independent State, she will have full Power to live peacefully, contract Alliances, pay her Debts, 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 European Union and United Nations, I pledge my Life, my Fortune and my sacred Honor.

Of course, this text is a free adaptation 
from Jefferson's draft of the United States 
Declaration of Independence

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