Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The legality of the USA Declaration of Independence





Today we have talked about the USA Declaration of Independence and about how its content was closely related to many of the ideas of Enlightenment. Last week there was a curious debate in Philadelphia about the legality of the Declaration of Independence. British and North American lawyers discussed about the content of the document written by Thomas Jefferson and defended different positions according to the historical moment where the Declaration was written. Here you have the BBC report about this debate and the conclusions of every part: 


And the following links include a lot of information about the Declaration: the full text, biographies of the signers, the historical context, the influences Jefferson received, a timeline of the independence process and the Revolutionary War and so on:




And you? What do you think? Is it legal to rebel against a government that doesn´t respect people´s rights? Can something legal be unfair? Or, on the other way around: can something illegal be fair?

No comments: