After repeated usurpation of power by the local government, many citizens of Shelby County, Alabama has signed this Declarartion of Independence exerting our right of refusal to accept any authority of the local government. If you are a citizen in the unincorporated area and outside any special district (housing development) of Shelby County, Alabama and are interested in signing this declaration feel free to contact us by email through this site with your name and a way to contact you. If you are having the same problem where you live, feel free to use this as an example for your own Declaration. Some people have said they didn't think this Declaration was legal. That's what was said about the original Declaration of Independence of 1776. This one is just as valid!

Declaration of Independence In Community of Shelby County, November 11, 2006. The common Declaration of several Citizens of Shelby County, Alabama in these United States of America,

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 Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator 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 these Citizens; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present Shelby County Commission is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute usurpation over these Citizens. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. The Shelby County Commission has refused to their Assent to Section 2 and Section 35 of the Constitution of Alabama, 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution, and “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity”, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. They have forbidden Citizens in unincorporated areas of the County the unimpeded and unlimited use of their privately owned property, unless suspended in their operation till the Commission’s Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, has utterly neglected to attend to them. The Commission has implemented ordinances for the accommodation of special districts of people, causing Citizens outside these districts in the unincorporated areas of the County to relinquish the right of Representation in the passing of overly restrictive zoning and a flawed master plan, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. They have called together meetings only to change the meeting place at the last moment causing concerned Citizens to feel uncomfortable and distant from the original meeting place, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into missing the meeting in order to manipulate compliance with their measures. They have redrawn the County beats in order to weaken the indigenous Citizens representation through voting and for opposing with manly firmness their invasions on the rights of the people. Individual commissioners have refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to not be represented; whereby the Commission’s powers, incapable of Annihilation, have not returned to the People at large for their exercise. They have endeavored to overly increase the population of this County; for that purpose of increasing tax revenues and gain support to enact unrealistic master zoning plan against the indigenous Citizens; refusing to enact others to encourage their migrations outside the County, and raising the conditions of new. Appropriations of Lands. Obstruction of the Administration of Justice, by refusing their Assent to Laws established under the Alabama Constitution and United States Constitution. The Commission has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. The Commission has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving their Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefit of voting on matters concerning private ownership of property and use thereof. For abolishing the free System of private property rights and Citizen responsibility, establishing therein an Arbitrary County government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into this County: For infringing on our Charters, manipulating our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For usurping our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever concerning private property rights and Citizens rights. The Commission has abdicated Citizens rights here, by declaring us under their Authority and waging War against our rights. They have plundered our resources, ravaged our County, trampled our individual rights, and destroyed the lives of our people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our brethren in the special districts. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their commissioners to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our indigenous lives and settlement here. 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 Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the several Citizens of Shelby County, Alabama, the United States of America, in General Agreement, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of this County, solemnly publish and declare, That these Citizens are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent from any and all County Commission actions and Authority; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the County Commission and Offices under their Control, and that all political connection between them and the Shelby County Commission, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent Citizens, they have full Power to use their private property in any manner they so desire and see fit, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Citizen may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.