The 'Right' and 'Duty' to Throw Off Unjust Government
by CHRIS CARTER August 2, 2010
The Declaration of Independence states that our government derives its just – or lawful – powers from the “consent of the governed.” The underlying principle implied in the Declaration was that “We the People” are the true and rightful government of the United States, and as Abraham Lincoln declared in his Gettysburg Address, “government of the people by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth.” Elected and appointed officials are managers selected to work on our behalf in order to accomplish our collective will. We do not, however, elect them to dictate what our will is, or should be.
However, in the event that our government becomes one consisting of rulers rather than representatives, our government determined over 200 years ago what our course of action should be.
On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee introduced a resolution to the Second Continental Congress proposing that the thirteen American colonies declare independence from Great Britain. After they consulted with their respective colonies, Congress approved the resolution on July 2. The wording was not approved until two days later, when 56 American patriots would sign “the unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,” more commonly known as the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration's authors listed numerous grievances perpetrated by Britain's King George III: abolishing the colonies' laws and representative houses, depriving colonists of their right to trial by jury, trying colonists in overseas kangaroo courts for phony charges, imposing taxes without consent, inciting insurgencies against the colonists, conducting mock trials on British troops charged with murdering colonists, forcing American prisoners to fight against other Americans, and for declaring war on the colonies – the Revolutionary War began fourteen months before Lee introduced his resolution.
But these “repeated injuries and usurpations” were all symptoms of a much larger disease. The founding fathers didn't declare independence from mock trials and taxation without representation. King George had established “absolute Tyranny” over the colonies, and that tyranny is what drove America to declaring independence.
The Declaration not only absolved our ties with the tyrannical ruler of Great Britain, the document also established individual rights that no man or government could encroach upon:
“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...”
Although our Constitution would not be ratified for another twelve years, the foundations had been laid for a people that – in theory – would no longer suffer under tyranny. Government could no more intrude on our unalienable rights than could an armed citizen walk into the Oval Office of the White House.
But has today's Federal government alienated American citizens from our unalienable rights? It is a sad truth that throughout human history, tyrants have used a mire of endless minutiae to obscure corrupt and manipulative power plays. The current state of political maneuvering seems to reflect this ongoing historic trend.
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The 'Right' and 'Duty' to Throw Off Unjust Government
