But they also became declarations of style, flags of independence hung to dry on wire lines for the neighbors or anyone else to see.
As is asserted in the Declaration of Independence, our style of government derives its "just powers from the consent of the governed".
BMW, for example, has successfully fused its global slogan of the "ultimate driving machine" with a Chinese-style declaration of ambition.
John F. Kennedy's was a high point of style and elegance, a declaration that glamour had returned after the plain-Jane years of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
It was both a declaration of arrival, as he took the style and images of Van Gogh, Lautrec, Degas and Gauguin and reworked them at will, and an instant success with the critics.
This book evaluates the development of the Israeli constitution from an unwritten British-style body of law to the declaration of the Basic Laws as the de facto Israeli constitution by the supreme court and on through the present day.
With music, dancing, an 1800's style baseball game and readings from the Declaration of Independence.
It's a declaration of independence of sorts, stated in her unshrill and unantagonistic style, but the message behind it is unmistakable.
The merits of his great summary, the Declaration of Independence, consisted, as Madison pointed out, "in a lucid communication of human rights…in a style and tone appropriate to the great occasion, and to the spirit of the American people".
IMF-style neo-liberals are now trotting out an interpretation that amounts to a belated declaration of victory.
