You will find a good summary of the issues (and perhaps some valuable footnotes) in Rousas Rushdoony’s “This Independent Republic” (c1964, I think). Also check his “The Institutes of Biblical Law” (c1973, I think).
Shay’s Rebellion might be a useful starting point. It was a significant driver of the Constitution (Shay’s Rebellion took place under the Articles of Confederation.)
In any event, Geo. Washington came out of retirement to quell the rebellion.
The Constitutional clause concerning treason against the United States was an outgrowth of Shay’s Rebellion and perhaps you will find a useful discussion or two in the Federalist Papers or the Anti-Federalist Papers.
Abraham Lincoln and his thoughts on the Civil War.
Try William Franklin, Royal Governor of New Jersey and Ben’s son. Also see what we did to him and how he was treated by the rebellion’s leaders.
the Ventian Black Nobility families. I.e. the Guelfs, of which the Queen of England is a direct descendant.
Look up “Tories” in the American Revolutionary period. For the most part, they resisted the notion that the Colonists had any right to reject English sovereignty. I can’t cite any particular personality, but there should be some if you research.
A famous argument for despotism is given by the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoyevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov.
There is also a very good book called “Tories” by Thomas B Allen about the American colonists who remained loyal to their King and country. There is an old adage that the history of wars are usually written by the victors, and the American Revolution is an excellent case in point. We have successfully whitewashed a very messy and at times dirty war and created a whole mythology around it. Probably a third or more of the people living in the colonies were loyalists and they suffered quite badly. There is a branch of my own family in Canada who trace their move there to when they had to flee New England after having their land stolen in the period following our Revolution.
The war was far more complicated then most Americans realize.
Do you recognize the following?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness . . .”
"During the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that conditions called war; and such a war, as if of every man, against every man.
"To this war of every man against every man, this also in consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law, where no law, no injustice. Force, and fraud, are in war the cardinal virtues.
"No arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short."
Start with the writer(s) of the Declaration of Independence.
Quote:
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence
Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America. John Adams was a leader in pushing for independence, which was unanimously approved on July 2. A committee of five had already drafted the formal declaration, to be ready when Congress voted on independence. The term “Declaration of Independence” is not used in the document itself.
Adams persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document,[3] which Congress would edit to produce the final version.
In January 1776, just as it became clear in the colonies that the king was not inclined to act as a conciliator, Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense was published.[24] Paine, who had only recently arrived in the colonies from England, argued in favor of colonial independence, advocating republicanism as an alternative to monarchy and hereditary rule.[25] Common Sense introduced no new ideas,[26] and probably had little direct effect on Congress’s thinking about independence; its importance was in stimulating public debate on a topic that few had previously dared to openly discuss.[27] Public support for separation from Great Britain steadily increased after the publication of Paine’s enormously popular pamphlet.[28]
While political maneuvering was setting the stage for an official declaration of independence, a document explaining the decision was being written. On June 11, 1776, Congress appointed a “Committee of Five”, consisting of John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut, to draft a declaration. Because the committee left no minutes, there is some uncertainty about how the drafting process proceeded—accounts written many years later by Jefferson and Adams, although frequently cited, are contradictory and not entirely reliable.
Try Kant’s view on revolutions. I have not looked at any of these (I did this very quickly), but they might start you on a path. Also, instead of revolution, try the term rebellion in your searches.
Sidney Axinn, “Kant, Authority, and the French Revolution”
L.W. Beck, “Kant and the Right of Rebellion”
Peter Nicholson, “Kant on the Duty Never to Resist the Sovereign”
Hans Reiss, “Kant and the Right of Rebellion”
Thomas Seebohm, “Kant’s Theory of Revolution”
Also, if you can get to a copy of “Kant’s Political Writings” with an introduction by Han Reiss, Cambridge Press 1970, the introduction is excellent in describing Kant’s view.
Here’s an excerpt of Reiss’s intro -
According to Kant, the case against rebellion is unambiguous. The people cannot possess a right to rebel. There can be no power to determine what constitutes the right to rebel. Rebellion would upset the whole system of laws. It would create anarchy and violence. It would also destroy the civil constitution which the idea of the social contract demands. For if a constitution contained an article permitting a people to rebel or to depose a sovereign, a second sovereign would thereby be established. This event would be a contradiction. It would, in fact, require a further, third sovereign to decide between the two, which is absurd. There cannot therefore be in a constitution a clause giving any one a right to resist or to rebel against supreme authority.
And finally, best wishes on your essay.
You will need the exact citation for an academic paper, but look for the Thomas Jefferson quote about the “Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time by the blood of patriots and tyrants” indicating that tyranny might arise that would rquire another revolution.
Surprised you hadn’t heard about that one as it is cited often on conservative websites.
Alexis de Toqueville’s many volumes on the American experiment should produce something as well.
I am particularly fond of Chapter 4, where Paine writes of the American Constitution and natural born citizens as a requirement to be President.
-PJ
Then consider how things are in a constitutional democracy or representative republic. If you have the right to present your views freely and argue for them, and you are voted down, do you still have the right to revolution? And under what circumstances? You may find that the right to revolution is not considered to be absolute when people do have the right to have their grievances heard and voted on.
P.S. Be sure to cite the immortal words of Jefferson: "Got a revolution. Got to revolution." It's somewhere in the Declaration of Independence, I think, and the quote sure to impress any teacher.
Consider the nature of your question
Pre-Christian philosophy looked at the nature of society, the roles of various classes (particularly Plato) and what the forms were to achieve the most stable and proper society, with everyone performing their roles. Even Aristotle, who might be considered “democratic” because he talked about the “Polity,” still talked about perfection of the ideal state and those few citizens who would rule it.
Christian philosophy was radical in that it asserted every man and woman was created in God’s image, with an independent soul, and logically then, each person was equal, as least in a most philosophical.
The Enlightenment thinkers, particular English ones, combined with the experiences of Protestantism, took this further and developed the idea of “Natural Rights” which God has given to every man. The “right to revolt” as you mention, reached its height with the political philosophy of the American Revolution, who had the decades after the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution to incubate their ideals.
I do not believe there is any philosopher who specifically says “there is no right to revolt” but the next major turn comes with the 19th century materialists who questioned or wanted to redefine a millennia of Christian thought. Nietzche, for example, didn’t talk about the rights of individuals, but rather, the idea of WHO had the right to revolt, or to be in charge (the Ubermensch) and the view that history is not set in the concept of an end in God, but rather, an unending repetition of events or cycles. Marxism and its related thinkers of course took this even further - history is only a record of the physical and material. The right to revolt certainly exists, but for the proletariat as a class, to fulfill the determined path of history. Then came the modern existentialists who basically said - don’t even look for meaning.
In my opinion, philosophy of the 20th and 21st centuries is the period of the rise of materialism, modernism and all forms of skepticism. Its a movement not really towards anything, but a movement away from Christian thought of the previous 1000 years. The ideals of the American Revolution we still have today, came from a very narrow and specific place - the Enlightenment of England. While these have been nurtured and grown under the English and later American Empire, we can not assume they are universally held or believed. We see them faltering even in the United States today.
Your question, therefore should be “Who believes in Natural Rights” and who are those who do not?
Look through “The Radicalism of the American Revolution,” by Gordon S. Wood.
Revolution is a duty.
Not a right.
Quote fidel castro and get an a