Replies

"Mr. [James] Wilson, could not admit the doctrine that when the Colonies became independent of G. Britain, they became independent also of each other. He read the declaration of Independence, observing thereon that the United Colonies were declared to be free & independent States; and inferring that they were independent, not Individually but Unitedly and that they were confederated as they were independent, States." - Madison,

"Government is instituted for the common good...the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it." --John Adams

You choose who you agree with, I'll choose whom I agee with.

"You choose who you agree with, I'll choose whom I agee with."

That's fair.

"Government is instituted for the common good...the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it. --John Adams"

"Lincoln's refutation of secession as a constitutional right rested entirely upon the truth of the doctrine that the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed. That, according to Lincoln, was the 'sheet anchor' of the republican form of government embodied in the constitution and guaranteed by it to the states. 'We the people' possessed the authority to ordain and establish the Constitution, because those who ratified it had been endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. Those rights entitle any people to alter or abolish any government that does not secure those rights and institute a government that, in their judgment, will do so and thereby provide for their safety and happiness. Those rights were the reason or reasons informing the authority of 'We the people' and the ground of the republican form of government. The moral rightness of republican government was moreover identical, in principle, with the moral wrongness of slavery. Republican government could not be right unless slavery were wrong.

"The rights of man were both natural and divine. they possessed their authority from God and nature. They were knowable by the exercise of unassisted reason and were the heritage of all men everywhere...

"According to Alexander Stephen's Cornerstone speech in 1861, the natural rights philosophy of the Founding Fathers had been replaced in all scientifically enlightened minds by the doctrine of racial inequality. Stephens never expounded the new 'science,' but it may be assumed that a decisive contributor to that science was John C. Calhoun. There can be no doubt that it was Calhoun who supplied the 'ingenious sophism' that had 'sugar coated' rebellion and brought the public mind of the South to believe that secession was a constitutional right."

Harry Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom