In the field of politics, they have deprived our people of every democratic liberty. They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political regimes in the North, the Center, and the South of Viet-Nam in order to wreck our national unity and prevent our people from being united. They have built more prisons than schools. They have mercilessly slain our patriots; they have drowned our uprisings in rivers of blood. They have fettered public opinion; they have practiced obscurantism against our people. To weaken our race they have forced us to use opium and alcohol. In the field of economics, they have fleeced us to the backbone, impoverished our people and devastated our land. They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials. They have monopolized the issuing of bank notes and the export trade. They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people, especially our peasantry, to a state of extreme poverty. They have hampered the prospering of our national bourgeoisie; they have mercilessly exploited our workers.
This article was formatted very similarly to the United States Declaration of Independence and I assume many other declarations of independence. This declaration in particular seemed to be of a recorded history instead of a declaration of independence because it had not really even mentioned that the Vietnamese were making their own country until the end. This document also seemed less formal than the American declaration due to its length, ease to read, and more finger pointingly direct against the French. Finally, this declaration seems to be saying that while they respect America, France, and the other modern countries they are not willing to submit to them and they should not be taken advantage of because they are their own country.