[Spok]

"Political power comes from the barrels of guns." Chairman Mao
The republic has been on a slippery slope since Appamatox. The rule of law is a fiction. As recently as the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, congress cited it's jurisdiction by basing it on the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Now laws are passed without a second's thought of Constitutional authority-they're legitimized by the power to compel obedience. Mao was right.
Having said that, this country wouldn't be what it is today if it had fragmented into feifdoms-the division between North and South wouldn't have been the last fracture in the Union. As a practical matter, Lincoln was right. He just didn't happen to have the law on his side. That's why the war was so hard fought-from their perspectives, both sides were right.

[nolu chan]

[Spok] Political power comes from the barrels of guns.
Chairman Mao

Lincoln quotes are big with the Maoists.

http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/faq/violence.html
MIM = Maoist International Movement

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. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.
Abraham Lincoln, Speech in the United States House of Representatives, Jan. 12, 1848

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."
Abraham Lincoln, "First Inaugural Address"