There is no natural right of independence! There is a natural right of revolution which is what the founding fathers appealed to in 1776. There is also a natural right of self-defense, so when a group of people invoke the natural right to revolution the people they are revolting from have a right to defend themselves to keep the country together. This is why the natural right of revolution is an appeal to force of arms or war. When you appeal to war you better have the power to make it stick.
Once you appeal to force of arms then your actions, in the western world at least, are evaluated under the concept of Just War. Let’s look at the southern rebels under the first criteria of Just War(which I received quite a bit of training on in the military), Jus Ad Bellum.
1)Proper authority and public declaration-were the southern rebels the proper authority and did they make public declarations. It could be argued they weren’t the proper authority, especially in states like Georgia and Tennessese where there was suppression of pro-union factions, but I’m going to give this one to the rebels. They did make public declarations. So point to the rebels.
2)Just cause / right intention- the southern rebels lost a free and fair election(even though republicans were kept off the ballot in the southern states) in a constitutional republic with a robust system of checks and balances. A party they believed would threaten their institution of chattel slavery won the presidency, though they still had enough representatives in congress to block most actions by this party, they decided to rebel. No way to sugar coat this, it is a horrible cause and horrible intention. Point to the United States.
3)Probability of success-or are the war aims achievable. Your not just wasting lives. The rebels chances of winning this war were slim to none. Point to the United States.
4)Proportionality-Did losing an election in a constitutional republic justify grabbing every governmental property in sight, actually imprisoning US soldiers and civilians, and firing on a US Fort. Answer is no. Point to the United States.
5)Last resort-was this the only means that the rebels had to protect their “peculiar institution”? No. They could have stayed in the United States and blocked most actions by the republicans. They could have worked through congress to pass legislation to allow states to secede or they could have seceded then appealed to the supreme court. They had many other options besides resorting to force. Point to the United States.
So under the Jus Ad Bellum theory of war its 4-1 in favor of the US. So the southern rebels fail under this test. Morally they were wrong to appeal to force of arms
“There is no natural right of independence!”
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 . . .
It is hard to argue with someone who has never read the Declaration of Revolution; I mean the Declaration of Independence.
The founders said there is. So did the natural law philosophers of that era.
This is why the natural right of revolution is an appeal to force of arms or war.
I've never heard of the "Declaration of Revolution." I've heard of the "Declaration of Independence."
The founding fathers believed they had a right to independence and went so far as to create and publish something called the Declaration of Independence.
The founding fathers asserted in the Declaration “the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them . . .”
They asserted they had “certain unalienable Rights . . .”
They spoke of the “Right of the People to alter or to abolish it(government) . . .”
Further, “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 . . .”
Comes now Brother OIFVeteran to assert the founding fathers had no right to call it the Declaration of Independence. “There is no natural right to independence,” posted Brother OIFVeteran.
I am beginning to doubt the wisdom of automatically accepting everything I read on the internet.
Elsewhere I have expressed a couple of concerns over this way of thinking.
It is worth looking at again because this statement, it seems, captures and explains the vast difference between the sides on this board, and importantly, the gulf between North and South - then and now.
Since Lincoln's election, and more so after the disaster at Appomattox, the North has contended fiercely that the South did not have the right to independence.
To the extent that Brother OIFVeteran speaks for Lincoln's side - no one says he doesn't - we see unambiguously their belief the Declaration of Independence could not provide the South with justification for independence in 1860, because the DOI could not provide the colonies justification for independence in 1776.
Read the Lincolnian view again, for the first time: “There is no natural right of independence!"
Not from Washington, or London.