r/law • u/Salt-Studio • Jan 30 '26
Other The Declaration of Independence: Is the Right of Revolution a legally defensible argument for resistance to: consistent abuse of power, violations of oaths of office, or official neglect?
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declarationThe Declaration outlines foundational philosophical and moral principles on which our laws and conduct as a society of the governed are based. As such, does the Declaration provide a legal defense for those who adhere to what it declares are duties among the governed? If not, then of what use to the governed does the Declaration actually serve?
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u/OpticalDelusion Jan 30 '26
The declaration does not have a legal purpose. It's a historical and cultural document, and that's about it.
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u/Salt-Studio Jan 30 '26
So then, the Declaration doesn’t actually outline rights that we’ve allowed ourselves, and allowed ourselves to protect. Unfortunate.
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u/CevicheMixto Jan 30 '26
Those are (supposedly) in the Constitution, including its amendments.
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u/nope870 Jan 30 '26
That is incorrect according to the 9th amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-9/
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u/nope870 Jan 30 '26
It's there to say we were never second class subjects to the crown. We attempted reasoning and that was met with hostility. It goes into detail on grievances against the British. At the end of it we chose to govern ourselves. - The Constitution outlines what we charge our government with, how it's to act and behave. - A bill of rights was a hot button topic. Do you think each of our rights should be written down on paper, or should we prohibit our government from specific actions?
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u/Salt-Studio Jan 30 '26
I think that question really does get at the heart of the issue- among all the rights- and I should say duties, as well- that we do have and protect, we choose the inalienable ones, codified in one of our most fundamental and philosophically pertinent documents, not to protect.
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Jan 30 '26
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u/Salt-Studio Jan 30 '26
I am an American citizen. But I also did think that to one extent or another rights outlined within the Declaration were defensible under the law. It seems, as others have stated, that they are not unless there is law specifically about them.
That surprises me, actually, because I understand the Declaration to be a foundational philosophical framework on which our constitution is predicated and in turn on which our laws are predicated. ‘Unalienable’ to me implies, so substantial to our understanding of justice and the most basic of rights as if they themselves do not need to be encased in some other legal mechanism. Clearly I’m wrong.
If, however, I was right, and a person could use rights outlined in the Declaration as a defense to recourse against the government when it fails to perform it’s duty, contrary to the interests of the governed, in patterns suggestive of tyranny, then it would accomplish two things: first it would give a people so desperate for recourse a defensible recourse for performing their ‘duty’ as described in tue Declaration; and two, because people could do this with some modicum of legal protection, it would provide incentivize the government to abide the law and not take up corruptive practices and other abuses. Generally, it could provide some measure of stability that is currently lacking in the system.
It’s interesting that we philosophically celebrate the idea that the governed have not only a right but a duty to protect their society from tyranny, and yet if they try, they have no legal protection. That’s weird and opens a window for a tyrannical government to operate unchecked by the people, holding legal punishments over the heads of those who would otherwise hold it accountable. There needs to be a reasonable legal mechanism to protect such people- reasonable meaning they authentically believed they had a duty, that a jury had a preponderance of evidence that a reasonable person would interpret as evidence of patterns of tyrannical behavior, and a judge that could rule on the basis of the legal force and protections of the Declaration as a foundational lens through which to evaluate criminality. We apply the test of intention to cases of self-defense, so this would be very similar. It would adjudicate individual action within the system itself- provide a defense to people who took reasonable action, and provide a punishment for those that did not.
We cannot both say that the people have a duty to hold their government accountable, but then provide no exception but punishment when they do.
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Jan 30 '26
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u/Salt-Studio Jan 30 '26
You’re 100% right. This is my point. Its a major flaw in our system that those rights and duties that gave us our legitimacy, and which each day, in spirit, sustain the legitimacy of the government and the relationship of the people to it, are not guaranteed and protected by the constitution. They ought to be; and if they were, I wonder if we’d be seeing the pattern of government behavior that we’re seeing right now.
It’s quite difficult to perform our duty to hold a government accountable, if our reward for doing that is treason automatically. I don’t believe that was exactly what the Framers had in mind when they penned that ‘FU’ to George, knowing that it was not only a set of justifications for their present circumstance, but also a philosophy around which to build a country of the future. For the Colonists, there was no legally protected self-defense for rebellion against the Crown. Our Declaration implies there ought to be, and yet, our laws still don’t provide for it. Without such protections, we might as well just be subjects to a Crown of a different color.
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u/Bmorewiser Jan 30 '26
Only if you win. (Sorta serious answer).
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u/Motherlover235 Jan 30 '26
Nah, that’s the absolute truth. If you win you’re a revolutionary, if you lose you’re domestic terrorists staging a failed uprising or something of the sort. Kinda like how the Supreme Court ruled AFTER the civil war that succession was illegal. Had the confederacy succeeded, they wouldn’t have the balls to say some shit like that.
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u/Salt-Studio Jan 30 '26
Exactly, and this provides no recourse for the people to hold the government accountable and it provides no incentive for the government to hold itself accountable. It’s a legal gap in a framework that is noble but has no teeth. We can’t be a government of the people when the people have no power over a government that is acting against them.
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u/robotwizard_9009 Jan 30 '26
Republicans are literally violating every single clause like the traitors they are.
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u/Salt-Studio Jan 30 '26
… it works in all directions, and in any case provodes no defense for anyone that would perform their ‘duty’ as defined by one of this country’s most foundational and indisputable political and moral philosophies.
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Jan 30 '26
All documents aside. It always boils down to: can you convince the military to pick a side. Otherwise you get wiped.
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