FRtR > Documents > Plakkaat van Verlatinghe, 1581 july 26

The Importance of the Plakkaat van Verlatinghe for American History


It is accepted that the Act of Abjuration, which has also be called "the Dutch Declaration of Independence", was well known among the drafters of the American Declaration of Independence. It is quite likely that copies of the Dutch text were circulating in the Continental Congress. The precedent of an abjuration of a sovereign because of his failure to be a good king was very important for the law-minded drafters of the Declaration of Independence. For the first time in Modern history a people had successfully renounced a king.

A close comparison between both texts, shows where some of the ideas from the Declaration of Indepence came from.