Is the US Declaration of Independence illegal?

BBC ^ | 19 Oct 2011 | Matt Danzico and Kate Dailey

[calex59]

At the time it was rule .69 mostly.

[Allegra]

Hey, England.

There was a war.

We won.

That's how it works.

Get over it, already.

[Lmo56]

Of course it was illegal. If they lost the war, they all knew they’d be hanged for treason.

Refer to Benjamin Franklin's quote:

"We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately ..."

[Retired Greyhound]

I think you missed my point.

The Founders knew that the acts they were engaging in would be considered high treason by the King, and yet they went ahead with it anyway. That is one of many things that makes the American Revolution so awesome.

I don’t consider it treason. I consider it liberation.

[Meet the New Boss]

Okay, I misread you, and we are in agreement that it was not treason.

However, I believe the cabal led by Grenville KNEW FULL WELL that what they were trying to pull off with respect to extracting moneys from the Americans grossly violated their constitutional rights and that the resistance by the Sons of Liberty groups and ultimately armed defense was NOT treason.

Their mindset was similar to that of progressives today - they viewed ordinary Americans with condescension, they believed their vision of an intellectual elite based in Whitehall administering a global trading empire benefiting all involved (in their view) justified taking the property of Americans to pay for the expenses of the empire with little attention paid to the procedural niceties of actually asking and receiving the permission of those Americans before taking their property.

[calex59]

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

"That 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."

Yep, and the FReepers who keep saying our states cannot secede from the Union only need to read those words to know that we have the right and only need the will to do so. The secession of the confederate states was legal the war started by the North was not. The south lacked the ability to win out but they still acted legally, maybe for the wrong reason but still they had the right.

[metalurgist]

Winners write the rules and the history books.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks FritzG.

[stevie_d_64]

Look at it this way...It took 235 years to get a group of these yahoos to gether to “question” it...

Whatever they come up with in their analysis, I still like our chances...

Besides, who has the nads to come and take us on it???

I still like our chances...