Source: Law & Liberty
by Michael Lucchese
“Strictly speaking, there can be no such thing as a positive legal right to revolution — certainly not for citizens of the United States. Though there have been various insurrections against federal authority throughout our history, only one came close to succeeding: the Southern Rebellion of 1861–65. Even as states were seceding to join the revolutionary Confederacy, Abraham Lincoln insisted that their actions were constitutionally null and void. … But while revolution may never be strictly legal, as Lincoln acknowledged, it may be necessary in order to preserve liberty and even what we might call the ‘natural law.'” [editor’s note: The southern secession was unambiguously “legal” by both omission (the Articles of Confederation declared themselves perpetual, the Constitution didn’t) and inclusion (under the 10th Amendment the power to dissolve the “union” clearly remains with the states – TLK] (05/05/26)