The first major legal debate was held in the fall of 2011 at the American Philosophical Society’s Benjamin Franklin Hall in Philadelphia, just a few blocks from Independence Hall, where delegates to the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776. The spirit of the place seemed to linger, and the British guests must have been sweating: they had crossed the Atlantic to argue that their forebears had been right—that the American colonies had illegally seceded from their mother country, Great Britain.
The second round of talks was held three years later, in 2014, at Gray’s Inn Hall in London. The tradition will continue with the upcoming milestone: following the celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the third round is scheduled to take place in Washington, DC, in October 2026.
The central question in the legal debates was whether colonial leaders who had sworn allegiance to the British Crown had the right to place themselves outside the British legal system and establish a new jurisdiction for themselves.
Arguments — The British Position
According to legal scholars from Gray’s Inn and the University of Oxford, the American colonies could not have legally declared independence under British law at the time. They argued that it was without precedent for a group of citizens to remove themselves from the jurisdiction of their own state and establish a separate legal order of their own.
According to British lawyers, declaring independence was a rebellion against the British legal system and the sovereign British Parliament, and by doing so, the American founders committed the crime of treason under the laws of the time. Interestingly, the signatories of the Declaration themselves acknowledged this when they declared that ‘we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor’ in the document’s final sentence.
‘According to British lawyers, declaring independence was a rebellion against the British legal system’
The list was entirely accurate, as treason under British law was punishable by death, the confiscation of all property, and the forfeiture of rank. However, the signatories did not take unnecessary risks: their names did not appear on the printed copies of the Declaration distributed to the states until January 1777, when the survival of the new republic appeared more secure amid the fighting of the Revolutionary War.
The British scholars maintained that the American Founding Fathers had no constitutional arguments at their disposal and, in their absence, were forced to rely on natural law. In their view, the ‘social contract’ theory, which gained prominence in the 18th century and held that individuals endowed by God with ‘inalienable rights’ could dissolve their contract with the government in the event of tyranny or abuse of power, was merely a philosophical construct rather than a legal doctrine and therefore could not serve as a valid legal justification for independence.
Furthermore, according to the British scholars, independence was a legally untenable and politically misguided response to what they regarded as a domestic political dispute: the American colonies’ protracted disagreements with the central British government.
The delegates from Gray’s Inn drew on later episodes in American history to argue against the legality of secession. They pointed out that President Abraham Lincoln declared the secession of the Southern states illegal in 1861 and preserved the Union only at the cost of a civil war. They also posed a hypothetical question: if Texas, long known for its strong tradition of state sovereignty, were to seek independence from the United States today on the basis of natural law, would it have the legal right to do so?
‘Independence was a legally untenable and politically misguided response to what they regarded as a domestic political dispute’
Arguments — The American Position
Former law professors from Yale and Stanford responded to the British arguments. In their view, the natural-law foundation of the Declaration of Independence was not a flaw, since many of the principles it proclaimed—such as equality of rights and popular sovereignty—later became embedded in the written constitutions of democratic states and even in one of the foundational pillars of international law, the UN Charter.
The Charter, they argued, also affirms the right of self-determination invoked by the Declaration of Independence, a principle on which many peoples have based their claims to national independence in modern history. These largely unilateral declarations of independence were generally recognized by the international community. In this way, the British Empire gradually dissolved, and—unlike in the American case—London largely ceased to prevent its colonies from becoming independent states during the 20th century, the American legal scholars noted.
They also drew attention to the fact that Thomas Jefferson and his associates practically referred to British legal declarations in outlining their grievances: the British overthrew King James II in their own country on the basis of the principles laid down in the 1689 Declaration of Rights, and no one in Great Britain questioned the legality of this document then—and no one has questioned it since. So what, the Americans asked, was wrong with the American ‘Declaration of Rights’ of 1776, which likewise drew on those principles?
‘Thomas Jefferson and his associates practically referred to British legal declarations in outlining their grievances’
The Yankees also pointed out the very important fact that before 1765, according to colonial customary law, the foreign affairs of the empire were handled by the London government, but decisions on the internal affairs of the colonies were left to local representative assemblies by London. The conflict was caused precisely by the continuous narrowing of this autonomy between 1765 and 1776.
Jefferson’s All Possible Arguments — Sufficient Evidence Against the King?
The so-called Committee of Five, which drafted the final text of the Declaration of Independence, assembled all the viable and legally relevant arguments to establish a legal basis for accusing the British King, George III, of ‘tyranny’ (that is, a breach of the social contract), thereby legitimizing American independence.
As already noted, by the summer of 1776 the American legal dispute with the British government had been ongoing for more than a decade. Frustration had erupted into armed conflict a year earlier, most of the colonies had come to regard the Continental Congress as their own government, and by the summer their delegates had shifted in favour of independence. In other words, by 1776 the rift between the two sides had already become profound.
The grievances Jefferson collected were well-known to his contemporaries, they were part of the public discourse, and most of the arguments had already been included, either verbatim or in general terms, in political pamphlets, state declarations, and constitutions published in previous years (the most notable of these being Richard Henry Lee’s Declaration of Independence, the Virginia Declaration of Rights, or the Virginia Constitution).
‘By the summer of 1776 the American legal dispute with the British government had been ongoing for more than a decade’
The Declaration of Independence listed 18 charges against the British king. Some referred to well-known abuses experienced across all thirteen colonies, while others concerned more limited local disputes. Some were compelling legal arguments, whereas others rested on weaker grounds. Two passages—one concerning slavery and another addressing the relationship with the English people—were removed during the congressional debate from the final text submitted for approval.
Nevertheless, taken together, the remaining charges formed a powerful body of arguments supporting the declaration’s concluding decision: to proclaim independence. As the Declaration states, ‘when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.’
The question is whether the listed governmental injustices had reached such a level that there was no longer any realistic prospect of a compromise with the British king, thereby leaving separation as America’s only remaining option.
According to American experts, Jefferson’s accusations are correct: the British king disregarded British law itself when he restricted the rights acquired by the inhabitants of the American colonies and included in the state charters, and thus became unworthy of ruling. And since, despite continuous colonial requests, the British central government failed to provide legal redress, the legal act of secession remained the only option for the American Congress.
‘The British king disregarded British law itself when he restricted the rights acquired by the inhabitants of the American colonies’
British law professors described all 18 arguments set out in the Declaration as trivial and argued that, in such a high-stakes matter, the American response—declaring independence—was excessive and disproportionate to the alleged wrongs. As an example, they highlighted what the drafters considered one of the Declaration’s strongest arguments: that the king had ‘imposed Taxes on us without our Consent.’ They acknowledged that the colonies’ demand for local representative bodies, rather than the distant Parliament in London, to determine the level and use of local taxation was legitimate. At the same time, however, they noted that, following the Seven Years’ War between Britain and France, the British government was using those tax revenues to strengthen the defence of the American colonies.
The Big Conclusion
Contemporary legal scholars are thus revisiting the great 18th-century debate once again—this time without the risk of war or any other conflict.
The conferences have so far been held in public before live audiences, who were invited to vote at the end of each debate on which side had presented the more convincing legal arguments. On both occasions—and the outcome of the third debate can also be anticipated—the majority concluded that Thomas Jefferson and his associates were justified, both legally and politically, in creating a new state through the Declaration of Independence.
These post-debate ‘polls’, however, were far from representative, as the audiences in both cases consisted largely of enthusiastic Americans. The United States as a political project is therefore in no danger of being called into question after 250 years of existence. The great democratic experiment continues.
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