“I am, however, fascinated by how you would extract from the same document a right of their owners to suppress such a rebellion. Please elucidate.”
Heck John Brown had a better right to start a rebellion against the USA than the south ever did.
pretty unusual sentiment for a southerner, do you have a personal perspective?
I have never heard anyone give a logical explanation why it would ever be morally wrong to start a rebellion against slavery.
You can disagree with his tactics and timing, and you can worry about the collateral damage of such a rebellion, but you cannot simultaneously support the US Declaration of Independence and believe that John Brown was morally wrong.
US slaves had infinitely greater cause to rebel against their masters than Americans ever had to rebel against the British Crown.
The only way you can support both positions is to assert that slaves (or blacks) aren’t really men within the meaning of the Declaration. Which was exactly the position eventually taken by Chief Justice Taney in the Dred Scott decision.