I cannot reconcile your statement above with what is written in that document. Once again we have a situation where both things cannot be true.
If the British Colonies secession from the British Union is not a case of expecting an "existing government" to "stop governing in a geographical area", I do not know what is.
That is exactly what we expected, and that is exactly what we got.
These people pledged their lives. What do you think they meant by that? They expected a fight.
Under the then British rules. But suppose Britain had a document called "The Freedom Declaration" which said that a Colony of Britain had a right to leave if the majority wished? Then Britain would have been in the wrong to stop them.
The British did not have such a document. *We did.*
The Declaration didn’t claim “a right to leave if a majority wished.” You’re making that up.
You can call our independence a secession if you want. The words seem interchangeable.
I suppose the colonists could have tried to talk Britain into having an election in the colonies to decide the matter. We chose a different path. We chose to tell them to take a hike and to take our chances on a military resolution of the issue.
The secessionists did the same thing. They could have tried to negotiate with Washington for an election, but like the colonists, they decided to have the matter decided by force of arms. Unlike the colonists, they lost the fight.. That can happen.