The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Independence \In`de*pend"ence\, n. [Cf. F. ind['e]pendance.]
   [1913 Webster]
   1. The state or quality of being independent; freedom from
      dependence; exemption from reliance on, or control by,
      others; self-subsistence or maintenance; direction of
      one's own affairs without interference.
      [1913 Webster]

            Let fortune do her worst, . . . as long as she never
            makes us lose our honesty and our independence.
                                                  --Pope.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Sufficient means for a comfortable livelihood.
      [1913 Webster]

   Declaration of Independence (Amer. Hist.), the declaration
      of the Congress of the Thirteen United States of America,
      on the 4th of July, 1776, by which they formally declared
      that these colonies were free and independent States, not
      subject to the government of Great Britain.
      [1913 Webster]

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Declaration of Independence \Declaration of Independence\, n.
   (Amer. Hist.)
   The document promugated, July 4, 1776, by the leaders of the
   thirteen British Colonies in America that they have formed an
   independent country. See note below.
   [PJC]

   Note: The Declaration of Independence of The 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 shown, 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 Colonies; and such is now the
         necessity which constrains them to alter their former
         Systems of Government.
         The history of the present King of Great Britain is a
         history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all
         having in direct object the establishment of an
         absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let
         Facts be submitted to a candid world.
         He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome
         and necessary for the public good.
         He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of
         immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in
         their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and
         when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend
         to them.
         He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation
         of large districts of people, unless those people would
         relinquish the right of Representation in the
         Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable
         to tyrants only.
         He has called together legislative bodies at places
         unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository
         of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of
         fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
         He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for
         opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the
         rights of the people.
         He has refused for a long time, after such
         dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby
         the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have
         returned to the People at large for their exercise; the
         State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the
         dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions
         within.
         He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these
         States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws of
         Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others
         to encourage their migration hither, and raising the
         conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
         He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by
         refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary
         Powers.
         He has made judges dependent on his Will alone, for the
         tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of
         their salaries.
         He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent
         hither swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat
         out their substance.
         He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing
         Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
         He has affected to render the Military independent of
         and superior to the Civil Power.
         He has combined with others to subject us to a
         jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and
         unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their
         Acts of pretended legislation:
         For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
         For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment
         for any Murders which they should commit on the
         Inhabitants of these States:
         For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
         For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:
         For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of
         Trial by Jury:
         For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for
         pretended offences:
         For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a
         neighbouring Province, establishing therein an
         Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so
         as to render it at once an example and fit instrument
         for introducing the same absolute rule into these
         Colonies:
         For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most
         valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of
         our Governments:
         For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring
         themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in
         all cases whatsoever.
         He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out
         of his Protection and waging War against us.
         He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt
         our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
         He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign
         mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation
         and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of
         Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most
         barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the Head of a
         civilized nation.
         He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on
         the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to
         become the executioners of their friends and Brethren,
         or to fall themselves by their Hands.
         He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and
         has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our
         frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known
         rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of
         all ages, sexes and conditions.
         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
         Prince, 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 attention to our British
         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 emigration 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 Representatives of the United States
         of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing
         to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of
         our intentions, do, in the Name, and by the Authority
         of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish
         and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of
         Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that
         they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British
         Crown, and that all political connection between them
         and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be
         totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent
         States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude
         Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, 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
         Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our
         Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Declaration \Dec`la*ra"tion\, n. [F. d['e]claration, fr. L.
   declaratio, fr. declarare. See Declare.]
   1. The act of declaring, or publicly announcing; explicit
      asserting; undisguised token of a ground or side taken on
      any subject; proclamation; exposition; as, the declaration
      of an opinion; a declaration of war, etc.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. That which is declared or proclaimed; announcement;
      distinct statement; formal expression; avowal.
      [1913 Webster]

            Declarations of mercy and love . . . in the Gospel.
                                                  --Tillotson.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. The document or instrument containing such statement or
      proclamation; as, the Declaration of Independence (now
      preserved in Washington).
      [1913 Webster]

            In 1776 the Americans laid before Europe that noble
            Declaration, which ought to be hung up in the
            nursery of every king, and blazoned on the porch of
            every royal palace.                   --Buckle.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. (Law) That part of the process or pleadings in which the
      plaintiff sets forth in order and at large his cause of
      complaint; the narration of the plaintiff's case
      containing the count, or counts. See Count, n., 3.
      [1913 Webster]

   Declaration of Independence. (Amer. Hist.) See Declaration
      of Independence in the vocabulary. See also under
      Independence.

   Declaration of rights. (Eng. Hist) See Bill of rights,
      under Bill.

   Declaration of trust (Law), a paper subscribed by a grantee
      of property, acknowledging that he holds it in trust for
      the purposes and upon the terms set forth. --Abbott.
      [1913 Webster]

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

Declaration of Independence
    n 1: the document recording the proclamation of the second
         Continental Congress (4 July 1776) asserting the
         independence of the Colonies from Great Britain