That quote from an Englishman born just months after the Glorious Revolution seems particularly apt here. It illustrates the bottom line as well as the hypocrisy of both sides in this debate: The American Revolution was legal ex post facto because it succeeded, just as others like it; had it failed it would have been universally recognized as illegal, just as all other revolutions with THAT outcome.

In this particular case, the United Kingdom lost any basis to cry, "treason" when they duly crowned James VI of Scotland King of England in accordance with established laws of succession only to despose AND EXECUTE his son Charles I, only to turn around a decade later and crown his son Charles II, only to turn around yet again three years after HIS death and "gloriously"/treasonously throw his son out as well because they disliked his religion. That seems especially exploitive of Scotland, which had fought centuries of warfare against England to secure its own independence only to find itself in the strange position of having a monarch who was the sole heir to the English throne. The very name and concept of "the United Kingdom" is owing to the Act of Union that precipitated, but with the Stuarts removed from the throne (each time) Scotland remained and remains no less a part of that United Kingdom; the English kicked out their king (twice,) but kept their country, despite another half century of periodic warfare against the Old and Young "Pretenders" (i.e. the rightful monarchs treasonously deposed.) Perhaps it was living through these times that led Alexander Pope to make the observation in the subject line.

The "grievances listed in the Declaration" that "were too trivial to justify secession" were nonetheless championed as such at the time by no lesser British light than Pitt the Elder; the legendary former Prime Minister considered taxing unrepresented colonies as abominable an affront to basic English principles of liberty as Jefferson and Adams did. Perhaps if Parliament and the King had given more ear to the giant who brought them through the perils of the Seven Years War to the pinnacle of global power things might have gone differently, but George IIIs paranoia and arrogance was no less where Pitt was concerned than where America was, and Lord North carried the day. As a result, Americans are probably more likely than Brits to recognize Norths name, because we still read about him in school history books. There is only one thing more absurd than the Brits ignoring their own history to "declare" the Declaration of Independence illegal and thus void.

That, of course, is Americans declaring an "inalienable" right to revolt while ignoring how utterly it was ignored during the Civil War, which only developed in the first place after Jackson summarily dismissed, under threat of arms, the right to Nullification articulated by the very same Jefferson who authored the Declaration of Independence (and the James Madison who authored the Constitution.) It was all well for Lincoln to take the position that the Union would not fire the first shot and thereby avoid being painted as the aggressor, but maintaining an armed military fortress (Fort Sumter) within the borders of the Confederacy was an inherently hostile act; he could not reasonably expect the Confederates to indefinitely endure hundreds of hostile heavily armed soldiers in their heartland, and refusing their withdrawal was tantamount to an act of war itself.

Given that the thirteen colonies only ratified the Constitution on condition of reassurance any and all states could secede at any time, Daniel Websters famous commitment to "union and liberty, now and forever, one and inseparable" exposes a rather shocking disregard for not only the principles but laws his country laid down just a half century earlier. Wikipedia calls Webster "the leading constitutional scholar of his generation" and notes that, far from being unaware of issues like Nullification, he was deeply involved with them, even helping compose a convention address to President Madison that stated, "if a separation of the states shall ever take place, it will be, on some occasion, when one portion of the country undertakes to control, to regulate, and to sacrifice the interest of another." That position is entirely consistent with the principles of the American Revolution, reiterated by Jefferson and Madison in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions; it is also utterly at odds with the position of Webster and his faction that secession is inherently illegal, despite the SCOTUS explicitly ruling just that subsequent to the Civil War.

In short, the leading American and British legislators of history were adept at arguing alternately for and against the same fundamental principles of their respective legal systems when it suited them, and their habit of doing so evidently remains robust to this very day. Ultimately, the common sense view of the matter seems to be the right one, as so much more succintly expressed in the Pope epigram quoted above: Any and all revolutions are as legal as they are successful, no more and no less. Obviously there is no way to argue withdrawal from and war against Britain or any other nation by one of its constituents is valid under the nations law; just as obviously no nation can prevent such withdrawal by any means if even open warfare fails that task. Thus many Americans regard Light Horse Harry Lee, captain of George Washingtons Revolutionary cavalry, as a hero and patriot, while simultaneously regarding his son Robert E. Lee as the blackest of traitors. One might wonder where that puts HIS son, George Washington Custis Lee, as both a Confederate cavalry officer and the only descendant of Martha Washingtons natural and George Washingtons adopted son. In a land where Jefferson and Madison can be revered as the authors of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and simultaneously condemned as the authors of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, it is a legitimate question.