Originally Posted by
Kathianne
In every constitutional law class I've taken (3), The Declaration of Independence is considered a message to the 'world' that the colonies were declaring a right to secede from Britain, giving the reasons why, and in the preamble explaining what they based the right to do so on.
Law? I don't see that. Pretty much until the Constitution was ratified over a decade later, the 'laws' were pretty much established British law, common law, and those that each colony or town had passed in the previous years.
message to the world, ok yes but,
It's a legal declaration though. It's not ike love letter or just an FYI note. Other countries were, at that point, in a position to legally recognize the colonies as a nation, a legal union, a sovereign nation. PRE-Constitution. The continental congress formalized the nation's federal gov't with the Articles of Confederation, they were the 1st laws and structure. Those laws were set aside after the Constitution, but the Declaration was never set aside. It stands as legal doc drafted and voted on by the country's early Continental Congress.
But it's not only a legal doc, it has a narrative and aspirational aspect to it that I don't think we should take as flat law. But it does, in a legal sense, set the compass for how our Gov't is expected to conduct itself. And the portion Acorn quotes was understood to applicable to all people, ESPECIALLY those that were to live under the go'vt of the U.S..
It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. The freeman of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the question in precedents. James Madison
Live as free people, yet without employing your freedom as a pretext for wickedness; but live at all times as servants of God. 1 Peter 2:16