Okay, how about this one from Thomas Jefferson:
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen 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.IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
Beyond that, I didn't know we were supposed to play by the rules of the Crown, rather than the rules of the Rebelling Colonies. Which side were we on again? According to the rules as outlined by the Rebelling Colonies, people have a right to dissolve the political bounds which join them to another people.
Yes, it's illegal under English law, but it was supposed to be the foundation Principle of our own nation.
From my reading, collective expatriation would seem to be a right, as proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence.
To claim that body's of people have a right to break from a Monarchy but no right to break from a Republic is hypocrisy.
Issued while the Colonies were engaged in an armed conflict to impel that separation that Jefferson spoke of. That doesn't sound like the Colonists thought their actions were legal to me.
Now if you want to equate the Southern cause with that of the Founding Fathers, and agree that both resorted to rebellion to acheive their aims then that's a start in the right direction. But your position seems to be that the Southern acts of secession were legal, and it was Lincoln in the wrong to oppose them. That is like the Founding Fathers being surprised that King George got all ticked off over that Lexington and Concord kerfluffel.
Question: Can you, tomorrow, announce that your house is now a separate country, no longer bound to the United States?
The odd thing was, before the D of I, the armed resistance was an attempt to get the Crown to play by the rules of law.
The colonies had taxing power. England’s Parliament attempted to pass taxes on the colonies, and those taxes were resisted, and eventually repealed because of that resistance.
They sought to get around the resistance by a tax on tea, having the tax paid in England, and the tea sold in the colonies. Most ports (Philadeplhia, NY) refused to unload the tea. Charleston unloaded it, but noone would buy it, and the tea rotted in a warehouse. In Boston the tea was going to be unloaded using the british soldiers, so prior to that it was dumped in the harbor by persons unknown.
In response to that, Parliament ordered that the Port of Boston be closed until the value of the tea was repaid. British common law required that warrants be sworn, persons be indicted, and trials be held. Parliament didn’t want to do that because the persons who dumped the tea were unknown, the trials would result in people being found not guilty. Suspected ringleaders left Boston to avoid capture and trial.
The closure of Boston as a port was an illegal collective punishment by Parliament and the Crown. Rather than closing the port to punish/starve people who had done nothing wrong common law required criminal acts be punished only after a trial.
The other colonies shipped food to Boston over land, so people wouldn’t starve. In response to that the British set up illegal checkpoints to prevent food from entering Boston, or where food could be illegally stolen by the British soldiers. In response to that, people left Boston. In response to people leaving Boston, British soldiers went on a patrol to attempt to illegaly steal weapons owned by the Colony, ammunition owned by the Colony, and capture persons suspected of being enthsiastic about the ‘tea party’.
In response to a military patrol sent out to steal, the local people organized as a milita resisted at Lexington and Concord. That military patrol was rather shot up by the time it returned to Boston, without the cannon, powder and shot they had attempted to steal.
In 1860 there were no such illegal actions by the US government before the start of the insurrection.