>>the colonies had no legal right to present the Declaration of Independence to the legal ruler of those colonies.
>>Of course they had no legal right to declare independence.
I worded that poorly. My point was that the Confederacy had AS MUCH right to rebel as the colonists: legal, moral, or otherwise. We never speak of the American Revolution as a civil war (even though it was from April 1775 to July 1776) and the failed Second Revolution was no civil war either.
And much later. Many brave Americans remained loyal to and fought for their King.
My point was that the Confederacy had AS MUCH right to rebel as the colonists: legal, moral, or otherwise.
I will cheerfully agree with you on the legal and otherwise parts. Moral, not so much.
The DoI is pretty clear that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish their government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which governments are properly set up: protection of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
You simply cannot extract from the DoI a right of revolution whenever you feel like it.
Since I do not believe the South was in any way being deprived in 1860 of their rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," I think they had no right at all to revolt, under the criteria specified in the DoI. Particularly since their revolt was specifically and explicitly to protect an institution which deprived other men of their right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
The DoI is at bottom a moral document, making a moral cause to justify revolution. IMO the seceding states failed to meet that standard.