You and others keep trying to make the Declaration of Independence about slavery because you want to completely distract people from the fact it is about *INDEPENDENCE*."
Naw... that's nonsense, because the logic of Independence is simple -- we're equal to you, with God-given rights, which you've abused in horrible ways, so we are declaring independence.
Equality is the foundation on which the entire logic of independence is built.
To put that another way, if we were lesser beings equivalent to, say, livestock, then we must suffer whatever demands our superiors place on us.
But we're not, we're equal, and therefore can only be governed through our consent, the consent of the governed.
That's why equality is the foundation on which independence is built, and it's why nearly every Founder opposed slavery, at least in principle and in the long-term.
DiogenesLamp: "Why do you do this?
Because it contradicts your claimed belief that the South had no right to leave.
The very founding document of this nation says they absolutely had a right to leave, so you want to try to say the Declaration of Independence was about slavery."
Nooooo... our Declaration of Independence clearly and unequivocally spells out our "right to leave" as being conditional, based on the "parade of horribles" it lists: 
- "...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.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
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..."
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.
To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world...
...They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity.
We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends...
So independence begins in equals suffering abuses, and the efforts of our Lost Causers to deny the importance of equality is more than a little grating on anyone who understands even a little about the subject.
DiogenesLamp: "It wasn't.
If you were honest you would admit that and just accept the fact that your side is legally and morally wrong about trying to stop people from having independence."
Sorry, but there's nothing honest in your attempts to compare the conditions of 1860 with those of 1776 -- they weren't even remotely comparable.
And there's nothing honest in your claims that the Declaration creates and unlimited "right of secession", because it does nothing of the sort.
Instead, the Declaration lays out dozens of conditions which justify independence, and not even one of those conditions existed in 1860.
All this is clearly spelled out by the Father of the Constitution, James Madison, in his proscription against secession "at pleasure", and that fully explains why in 1861, the Virginia delegation refused to declare secession for "light and transient causes", but instead waited until after war began at Fort Sumter to declare secession and war against the United States.
DiogenesLamp: "The Declaration of Independence is a *KNOCKOUT PUNCH* to your side, and this is why you keep trying to divert any discussion of it into "slavery."
It's dishonest, and your side needs to quit doing it."
Of course, you are simply referring to your own weak arguments here, and such diversions are all coming from your own side, as a review of this thread clearly shows.
DiogenesLamp's post #133 is the first time on this thread the Declaration of Independence is mentioned in this context.