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you: The honest judgement of the people of the south was that the current government had manifested an undeniable resolve to tyranize the people of the South. You may disagree with their judgement. But that certainly doesn't give you the right to impose your view on others. And it did not give Lincoln that right either.

You can't mean this as a universal principle. Hitler no doubt had reached an honest judgment that the Jews manifested an undeniable resolve to tyranize over the Arians. I trust you won't think I intend the comparison beyond this basic point -- the Declaration cannot mean only that groups of "sincere" people have the right to establish whatever form of government they sincerely want. Fanatics and tyrants are frequently quite sincere.

The Declaration BEGINS with the assertion that a people finding it necessary to dissolve political bands must, out of a decent to the opinions of mankind, declare the causes that impel them to the separation. The document, from its first sentence, implies a court of rational judgment, presided over by the reasonable opinions of mankind, to which appeal must be made if a revolution is to be considered just.

Of course such a court of opinion, of judgment, may be mostly or entirely composed of people who have no power or political authority to stop the revolution. But the Declaration means nothing if it is not an assertion that revolutions are legitimate only if they can give rationally compelling reasons that the radical step of dissolving political bonds is justified. Unless we are to choose absolute moral relativism over the principles of the Declaration, I think we have to say that every revolution is either justified or not, that morally wise men can reach some kind of agreement on that in each case, and that whether or not such agreement gets practically applied by someone, we should not abandon our belief that moral truth on the question exists. So, I and others would say about the American Revolution, it was justified because of the compelling case its agents made that it was necessary in order for the Americans to secure their unalienable rights by establishing a government substantially devoted to securing them. And we would say that the Southern rebellion can give no such compelling justification.

So the first question is -- what were the reasons the South could offer that made their revolt necessary? And given the overwhelming proof that that revolt was motivated chiefly by the passionate insistence on keeping the institution of slavery, can they possibly have offered the kind of reasons that the Declaration judges necessary -- to avert tyranny which subverts the possibility of government in the service of human equality?

Finally, the secession was a withdrawal from a previously compacted political community, in which the non-seceeders had placed their fundamental political trust for the securing of their unalienable rights. One particular reason that revolution-makers must make their case is that they are proposing to cancel fundamental arrangements and commitment that they have already made with other, equal, human beings. Fellow citizens of the Union do most emphatically have a stake in that question -- because the Union was a government THEY made to secure THEIR rights. And President Lincoln was the man solemnly charged to execute that commitment for the four years of his term. When you are in an office like that, "imposing your view" of the very matter for which you are responsible is more accurately called "doing your duty."

you: Actually that's what "consent of the governed means". It means that when people no longer consent to a particular form of government, they have the right -- indeed the obligation -- to change it. The Declaration points out that people will be slow to do this because it is a serious thing. They will tolerate injustice rather than change their government. But when they reach the point that they no longer consent to that government, then they have the absolute right to change it.

"Consent of the governed" means that it is the governed -- NOT THEIR GOVERNMENT -- that is the rightful ultimate authority to judge whether their unalienable rights are being respected. It means to say that government does not have an independent basis -- God or tradition, disregarding the people -- for its rightful power in the task of securing those rights.

"Consent of the governed" does not mean that any government that a group of people "consent" to, for whatever reason, and assigned any purpose, thereby has "just powers." The notion that the Declaration is announcing the right of a people to establish any kind of government they want, on any principles whatever, and that the "just powers" of that government would require only that the mob continue to "consent" for now, is amazing to me.

The "governed" mentioned are previously mentioned under the notions of "created equal," "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" and as "instituting governments" IN ORDER to "secure THESE rights". The consent that is mentioned is most plainly, by any serious reading of the document, intended to convey the ongoing superintendence of the people that the government they have INSTITUTED for a defined and non-negotiable purpose remains ORDERED to that purpose. The people exercise on-going consent on a particular question, viz. that the government that is their instrument for a defined purpose -- securing the unalienable rights men are endowed with, EQUALLY, by their Creator -- is still securing those rights for them.

Springing loose the single clause: "securing their just powers from the consent of the governed" from this context is just literary deconstruction and philosophical incoherence, to speak plainly. Even then, the word "just" seems oddly out of place in such an interpretation. Can you really maintain that the Declaration means by "just" simply "whatever a group agrees together to do."?

I see that it serves the desires of secession to read the document as though it establishes the right of any group strong enough to establish any rules for its common life. In fact, the document identifies the people as those responsible for the ongoing, solemn judgment that their government is still the instrument they intended -- which it is their duty to continue intending -- to make.

You're not really suggesting that the South's decision to peacefully withdraw from the Union is in any way comparable with Hitler's decision to murder millions of Jews, are you? Perhaps not. But you should be more careful in your analogy.

Yes. I do mean that the people have the right to establish the form of government that suits them. Even if they choose unwisely. (That does not give the government the right to murder people though.)

I consider socialism tyranny. It is nothing more than slavery to the government. But the people of Sweden have chosen such a government. Do I consider it wise? No. But it is their right to chose such a form of government.

The Declaration of Independence makes this very clear. The Declaration does not say that the right to self-determiniation is conditional. No court of world opinion may deprive people of that right. World opinion may disapprove of Islamic fundementalism, but if the people of the middle east choose to live under such a system, we have no right to force them to adopt another.

As for the argument that the North had something to lose if the South seceded, that is true. Over 80% of the federal taxes were paid by the South and most of the expenditures were made on improvements in the North. The Republicans had promised to raise tariffs so that the South would pay even more and had also promised to spend more on Northern industries, railroads, and canals. We in the South were the cash cows that the North was determined to milk dry. If the South left the Union, the North might have to pay their own way. The power to tax is the power to destroy and the North was determined to use that power to destroy the South.