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ration was written by common people who wished to
kick out a king and govern themselves. The Dutch dec-
laration was written by men who wished to kick out a
bad king from another country so they could be ruled by
a king of their own choosing.
When the Americans won their independence from
King George, the idea that people could elect their own
rulers to govern themselves spread throughout Europe.
Soon, revolution erupted in France. In 1789, an assembly
of French citizens adopted the “Declaration of the Rights
31
The Words of Thomas Jefferson
Statue of William of Orange, the Dutch prince who led a war for
independence from Spain in the late 16th century. The Dutch wrote
their own declaration of independence, the Act of Abjuration, nearly
200 years before the American Revolution.