Your very good at cherry picking. I never said the founding fathers had no right to declare independence. I said there is no natural right to independence, I’ve never read anyone claiming there is such a natural right. I believe because such a natural right would presuppose that the other side has to just let you leave.
What I have consistently stated is that there is a natural right to revolution, in other words resort to arms or war. This is the natural right that all founding fathers recognized. This is an extra-legal, or illegal, act. This is why Benjamin Franklin so famously stated; “we must all hang together, or we will, most assuredly, all hang apart.”
Now governments, like people, have a natural right to self defense. They do not have to just let you go. This is why Abraham Lincoln stated;
“Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better.
When a people resort to arms we in the western world use the Just War doctrine to determine if it was right for that group of people to resort to war. Just war theory is broken into two sections; Just Ad Bellum and Jus in Bello. I have previously shown on this thread how the southern rebels fail the Jus Ad Bellum section of the Just war doctrine.
So you are wrong I have been entirely consistent in my arguments on the natural right of revolution and the southern rebellion. Your side, however, has not. You are like slippery ells that slither away from one argument to another when you are shown to be wrong.
Read it here, for the first time: “ . . . by 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 . . .”
“I never said the founding fathers had no right to declare independence. I said there is no natural right to independence . . .”
This sounds like double-talk to me. Please explain.