We share that view.
But if you don’t think the colonies, then the states, were the basic building blocks of our nation I’ll try to follow your thinking.
If we think in terms of the colonies, then the states, as the basic building blocks of our nation, you might say I'm thinking in terms of the elements of which those blocks are made and/or maybe the mortar that holds them together.
I don’t know what you are talking about half the time.
Fair enough.
You wrote that in response to what I wrote in post 90, which was:
Neither quote notes an offspring relationship as a limiting factor. And if it were a limiting factor, would that not have been a problem for the signers of the DOI due to colonies being offspring of England based on Grants, Charters and so forth?
Let's start with the quote from the Declaration of Independence (DOI):
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 . ..
I don't see anything in that quote that indicates that when it becomes necessary, people of a county may not dissolve the political bands which have connected them with the people of a state, or with other people of the county, just because the state created the county making the county an offspring of the state. Determining and agreeing to "the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them" could be an issue.
Note that charters and land grants issued under English law created American colonies, thus those colonies were offspring of England in the same way that counties are offspring of a state because they are created under state law.
If the words from the DOI quoted above are not applicable to a county because it is an offspring of a parent state, then they would not be applicable to a colony because it was an offspring of the parent England.
Continuing, I wrote:
To expand on that a little, it could be said there is a God given right to secede (to dissolve the political bands) when it's necessary and when the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle assumption of separate and equal station among the powers of the earth.
I won't repeat all I wrote regarding the quote from the DOI, but I believe the same principle applies.
The signers of the DOI didn't present their arguments in terms of counties, cities, and neighborhoods. They styled their revolution based on colonies and states.
Read what they wrote: “We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of 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; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
The signers of the DOI never indicated, that I know, that neighborhoods or villages could levy war - it was “Independent States may of right to do.”
For your purpose you may want to stretch the concept of freedom to contend the upper torso can rebel against the lower torso. Fine. But it's misreading the DOI to say that's what the signers intended, or that was what the Confederates were contemplating.