Aloha kakou.
Students of Richardson School of Law may be interested in a legal debate recently over in the U.S. regarding the illegality or legality of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Please click here for a background to the debate:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15345511
Or here:
http://www.history.com/news/2011/10/20/is-the-declaration-of-independence-illegal
Had this debate been held locally in Hawai'i the resultant vote outcome may well have been very different!
Replies
The American case for the Declaration
The Declaration is unquestionably "legal". Under basic principles of "Natural Law", government can only be by the consent of the people and there comes a point when allegiance is no longer required in face of tyranny.
The legality of the Declaration and its validity is proven by subsequent independence movements which have been enforced by world opinion as right and just, based on the fundamental principles of equality and self-determination now reflected in the UN Charter.
The British case against it
The Declaration of Independence was not only illegal, but actually treasonable. There is no legal principle then or now to allow a group of citizens to establish their own laws because they want to. What if Texas decided today it wanted to secede from the Union?
Lincoln made the case against secession and he was right. The Declaration of Independence itself, in the absence of any recognised legal basis, had to appeal to "natural law", an undefined concept, and to "self-evident truths", that is to say truths for which no evidence could be provided.
The grievances listed in the Declaration were too trivial to justify secession. The main one - no taxation without representation - was no more than a wish on the part of the colonists, to avoid paying for the expense of protecting them against the French during seven years of arduous war and conflict.
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Don't want to crowd out the forum....this is very interesting battle lost, but the object is to win the war, huh Andrew? Nice to see you posting. I will ponder on this one and get back later when the forum is not so crowded hope to use my brains and bring it to the forefront of the APEC fora on Maoliworld.
It is so interesting tho, because former governor 1993 John Waihe'e was accused of treason when he allowed the supposedly Hawaiian Flag (British) to replace the American Flag on top of the Iolani Palace. I was standing next to my Uncle Randy Kalahiki who was concern over the treason problem. I post marked on a postcard Jan 16 1993 a hundred times with what was printed in the Newspaper at that time. And I sold it for a $1.00 at a craft fair at Mission House and wow was the news caster pissed off for doing such a thing. I wanted to document and spread the word out of the 'treasonous' slandering of the governor to save the day. People thought the state of hawaii was going to be averted to Independence, under the governor then John Waihee. It was a bit funny at that time for me cause I was so not there at that time like my Uncles with the Independence movement and Sovereignty--slow learner.
Coming from a protestant background, Iam so not there with "fundamental priciples of equality and self-detrmination now reflected in the UN Charter." Will give this some extra thought, I believe this is the stepping grounds to argue the nasty gray areas of the US and what they actually do after the mounds and mounds of information are exchanged as in the military in Hawaii 'inclusion' of one of the three pillars for APEC!
second site and my most favorite......
"Foreign Policy muses, "In any case, wasn't breaking British laws kind of the point? Maybe next time we can debate the legality of colonizing other people's countries in the first place."
Aloha kaua Kaohi.
Though somewhat frivolous the debate emphasizes how legal and right are not always one and the same thing, the choice of Texas was not ideal had Michael Beloff QC (Queen's Counsel) and his team selected Hawai'i instead that would certainly have opened a can of legal-eagle worms.
Just loved the commentator who posted this truism:
'Strictly speaking, the land over which "sovereignty" was claimed did not belong to either of the parties to the ensuing conflict. It has been forcibly seized (or sometimes through connivance) from indigenous people. So the question of the legality of the Declaration of Independence of British colonies is secondary to the question of the legitimacy of said colonies to begin with.'
-Aloha.
Aloha kakou.
E Amelia, mahalo for your response, looks like the Moku o Keawe U.S. researcher may have come across the original U.S. Declaration of Independence which preceded the one you display which was a Declaration by "Representatives of the United States" click here to see it:
http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/freedom/doi/why-not.html
The contentious debate has generated a good deal of discussion here on the internet as UK lawyers suggested the document amounts to treason, the issue revolves around the actual legality of the U.S. Declaration of Independence at the time it was signed and not retrospectively with the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Fox News ran a story on the debate which you can access via the Huffington Post here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/declaration-of-independenc...
If the venue had been up at UH Manoa rather than Ben Franklin Hall, Philadelphia, over in the U.S. even the flying ants may have been cheering!
E malama pono. -Andrew.