“So you admit that the Southern actions were a rebellion?”
The declaration permits the dissolution of common authority to preserve individual liberty in the face of tyranny.
You can argue that the South was misguided, but you cannot argue they did not have the authority, as free men and free people, to do what they did attempt.
Is that a yes or a no?
You can argue that the South was misguided, but you cannot argue they did not have the authority, as free men and free people, to do what they did attempt.
It is a God given right to rebel for any reason, or no reason at all as the case may be. But having taken that path don't blame anyone but yourself if you lose.
Sure I can.
The Declaration was in its essence a moral document. It was intended to define the conditions under which rebellion was morally justified and was quite specific about it.
Rebellion is morally justified when the existing government becomes destructive of the ends for which the Declaration says governments exist: To protect the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Rebellions engaged in for the purpose of depriving other humans of these rights are not and cannot be morally justified under the conditions specified by the Declaration.
If any and all rebellions or revolts are justified simply because some people choose to rebel, then the various Communist and other revolutions were justifiable under the principle of the Declaration of Independence. And they weren't, since their entire purpose was to deprive other humans of the rights the DOI champions.
Similarly, since the purpose of secession was not to expand the rights of men, but rather to prevent any such possible expansion, secession cannot be morally justified by the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
This is not to say that the Founders were stupid enough to not realize that any rebellion with enough physical force behind it could win. They knew that. Which is why the Declaration addressed the morality of revolution, not its practical power to make itself effective.