Monthly Archives: October 2011

This week I want to talk about law and morality.  Is the United States Declaration of Independence illegal?  This was the question before a panel of British and American lawyers at a recent debate in Philadelphia just a few blocks from where the document was originally drafted.

The American lawyers argued that “The English had used their own Declaration of Rights to depose King James II and these acts were deemed completely lawful and justified.”  The British barristers responded that secession isn’t legal and what the English did centuries ago was different than what the American colonists had done.  They asked, “What if Texas decided today it wanted to secede from the Union?” read more