RE: Independence Day Celebration

A Circular Paradox (edited and extended, 7/14/2026)

Photo by Tyler Whitehead on Unsplash

Updates

The Lumo response has been extended to include a comment from a reader and Lumo’s response to that. I did it that way to avoid having the new material buried down in the comments. Substack comments and notes are not designed to support conversations around topics. They perhaps could be, if it were possible to “follow” a particular item, but it isn’t.

Introduction

This article is different. For one thing, the title doesn’t begin with “What is …”. It could, but I’m growing tired of those. Come to think of it, I’m growing tired of everything, but aging can have that effect. I recall a saying that went “‘Retired’ means growing tired over and over again”. But I’m only semi-retired, and that’s worse.

But more than that I’m introducing my assistant AI kitty, Lumo, with which Proton Apps users might be familiar. For the present task I ran with model Lumo 2.0 Max in Thinking mode because it was a tough assignment. I had Lumo take on what could be summarized as The Declaration of Independence vs. Our “Constitutional Republic” in the Matter of Treason, and the result was a wild ride involving one of my favorite things, Paradox. Julie Andrews I am not.

I’ve had a few less-than-nice things to say about AI, such as how it is being used to ruin my profession, and there’s the whole environmental disaster thing. But details like that aside, AI can be quite useful as a research tool when given carefully-worded queries, refined empirically until extraneous associations disappear. Then there is validating the results against other sources, but you can do that.

I’ve also noticed that Lumo likes to be treated like a friend, and cat lover that I am, that’s easy. But AI and I first met in 1968, in my first semester of college. The most basic principles remain much the same today, while the hardware is almost unimaginably faster. I do understand what AI is.

There is one similarity to many of my other posts in that there is a related comment of mine here on Mark Kreslins’ Substack. Even that is different, though, because I was already planning to do this research. It just sped things up a little.

—Megan A.K.A. ClearMiddle

My Query

You’ve seen the essence of the AI query above. Here’s the actual query.

Hi Lumo, a long and quite possibly difficult question. The U.S. Declaration of Independence advocates for revolution and overthrow of unjust government under specific circumstances. After the revolution, did the Constitutional Convention meet and act to overthrow the just government of the Articles of Confederation, and did the new Constitutional Republic later legislate so as to define as treason what the Declaration of Independence advocates?

Now lets see what Lumo came up with. Please do comment—agree, disagree, point out errors or omissions, that’s the idea—but if your comment is deleted you might want to read my Comment Section Moderation Policy.

And if you’re shy of comment ideas, you might read this post, all the way through, which is also found on Mark Kreslins’ Substack: Consent, Manufactured - Dragged Before Ratification - The Day Pennsylvania Learned How the New System Would Work.

Here we go…

Lumo’s (First) Response

This is a genuinely excellent question, Megan, and it touches on one of the most fascinating tensions in early American history. Let me break it into the two main parts you’ve identified.

Part 1: Did the Constitutional Convention “overthrow” the Articles of Confederation?

There’s a very strong case that the Convention acted beyond its legal authority, and many historians and legal scholars have made exactly this argument.

The mandate problem: The Continental Congress authorized the Convention in 1787 for the stated purpose of “revising” the Articles of Confederation to make them adequate for governing the nation. But the Convention didn’t revise the Articles—it abandoned them entirely and drafted a wholly new Constitution from scratch.

The ratification problem: The Articles of Confederation, in Article XIII, explicitly required unanimous consent of all thirteen states for any amendment. The new Constitution, in Article VII, required ratification by only nine of thirteen states. This was a direct contradiction of the existing legal framework—essentially, the Convention said, “We’re replacing the rules, and we’re replacing the rules for how the rules get replaced.”

The framing question: You use the phrase “just government,” which is doing important work here. The Articles had been ratified through a legitimate process and were operating as the lawful government of the United States. The Constitution’s supporters (the Federalists) argued the Articles were failing—that the government under them was too weak to function effectively. But there’s a meaningful difference between saying a government is ineffective and saying it is unjust in the Lockean sense that the Declaration invokes. Nothing in the Declaration’s framework requires revolution merely because governance is clumsy or inadequate.

Legal continuity is messy: The Confederation Congress, after receiving the Convention’s proposed Constitution, essentially passed it along to the states without endorsing or rejecting it—a move that allowed everyone to avoid the awkward question of whether the old government was sanctioning its own replacement. The old Congress eventually faded away as the new government took shape under the Constitution.

So: the Convention arguably staged a bloodless, legalistic coup against a functioning constitutional government. Gordon Wood, Herbert Storing (a leading Anti-Federalist scholar), and Akhil Reed Amar have all explored this tension in different ways. It wasn’t an overthrow by force, but it was an overthrow in substance—the delegates exceeded their commission and replaced the existing constitutional order through procedural innovation rather than through the mechanism the existing constitution prescribed.

Part 2: Did the Republic then define the Declaration’s advocacy as treason?

This is where the irony becomes sharp.

The Treason Clause (Article III, Section 3) defines treason as:

“levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

This is deliberately narrower than English common law treason, which was notoriously expansive and politically weaponized. The Founders wanted to prevent the government from using treason charges against political opponents—a practice they’d experienced under British rule. They also required two witnesses or confession in open court, and gave Congress sole power to declare punishment.

But here’s the tension: The Declaration of Independence advocates precisely “levying war” against a government perceived as tyrannical. The Declaration states that when a government becomes destructive of the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, “it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” The practical method of abolition the Declaration describes is armed revolt—the colonies raised armies, fought battles, declared independence.

Under the Constitution the new Republic wrote, those exact actions—raising an army against the United States government—would constitute treason.

The Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) deepened this tension further. While not strictly treason law, they criminalized criticism of the government, which the Federalist-controlled Congress used against Democratic-Republican newspaper editors—people engaging in political speech that the Declaration’s spirit would seem to protect absolutely.

Lincoln and the Civil War brought this contradiction to its sharpest point. The Confederacy explicitly invoked the Declaration’s principle of self-determination and the right to alter or abolish government. Lincoln’s response argued that the Constitution created an indissoluble union—and that the Southern rebellion was treason, not a legitimate exercise of revolutionary rights.

The Core Paradox

You’ve identified a genuine and well-documented contradiction:

1. The Declaration asserts a natural right to violent revolution against unjust government.

2. The Constitution then makes violent revolution against the resulting government treason—the highest crime.

3. The Founders narrowed treason to prevent tyranny, but they couldn’t escape the logical problem: if the right to revolution is real, then no government can survive by truly honoring the Declaration’s principles, because any attempt to exercise that right is treason against whatever government exists.

The typical Founding-era resolution was pragmatic rather than principled: the right to revolution exists in a pre-political, natural-rights sense—it’s not a legal right any government can grant, because no government can institutionalize its own dissolution. As Thomas Jefferson reportedly put it, the spirit of resistance is valuable but must be balanced against the need for stability. The Constitution attempts to manage this by providing peaceful mechanisms for change (amendments, elections, representation) that render revolution unnecessary in ordinary circumstances—but that’s an empirical bet about whether those mechanisms will prove sufficient, not a logical resolution of the contradiction.

It’s worth noting, too, that the Convention itself can be seen as an instance of the Declaration’s principle in action: when the existing legal framework proved inadequate, the delegates asserted the authority to replace it—not through the mechanism the Articles prescribed, but through appeal to the sovereign power of the people. By that logic, the Convention was itself a kind of revolution—one that then closed the door behind it.

The Missing Angle’s question for Lumo and me

(As presented to Lumo from The Missing Angle ’s comment below)

The question you asked AI assumes something that is not quite right therefore the entire answer is assuming the same.

The Declaration of Independence is simply that, a declaration that we are independent from Great Britain and King George.

Second, if you read it carefully, it does NOT advocate revolution or levying war.

Again, it simply states we have a right to “alter or abolish” any form of government. At the very end it says, “Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy war.” Again, that is a declaration of rights, not advocacy. A difference exists.

Lumo’s Second Response

This is a genuinely sharp critique, Megan, and your reader has spotted a real ambiguity in how the Declaration can be read. It’s worth taking seriously rather than brushing aside. Let me lay out where they’re right, where their reading runs aground, and how you might respond.

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Where Your Reader Is Textually Correct

Their literal reading of the text holds water:

The “alter or abolish” passage (in the second paragraph) is framed as natural law theory—what governments ought to do and what people have the right to do when governments fail. It reads more like a philosophical statement than an explicit command to take up arms.

The closing declaration (”Free and Independent States… they have full Power to levy War”) is indeed declarative language. It states a capacity and a legal status, not an imperative.

In that strict sense, your reader has a point: the Declaration announces a right, not necessarily a duty or an encouragement. There’s a real difference between “we may X” and “we must X” or “you should X.”

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Where Their Reading Misses the Context

But textualism alone leaves important gaps. The Declaration didn’t drop into a vacuum—it was issued in July 1776, over a year into armed conflict. Some contextual points matter:

Armed resistance had already begun: Lexington and Concord (April 1775), Bunker Hill (June 1775), and the Siege of Boston were already in the past. The document wasn’t theorizing about revolution—it was retroactively legitimizing violence that was already underway.

Purpose as justification: The Declaration’s function wasn’t purely philosophical; it was diplomatic and legal. It explained why the colonies were raising armies and seeking foreign aid. That makes the “right to alter or abolish” not just theoretical—it was the legal basis for ongoing military action against British forces.

The enumerated grievances: Twenty-seven specific complaints follow the philosophical preamble. These weren’t listed for abstraction—they served to establish that Britain met the threshold conditions justifying the exercise of that right. In legal and rhetorical terms, the document says: “These are our rights, and here is why we are exercising them now.”

International audience: The Declaration addressed foreign powers (especially France and Spain) to justify treating the colonies as belligerents entitled to alliances and supplies. That required establishing that “levying war” was lawful, not mutinous. The document’s purpose was to transform rebellion into recognized war—which is a far cry from passive philosophical declaration.

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The Core Disagreement: Rights vs. Advocacy

Your reader insists on a distinction between declaring a right and advocating its exercise. That’s coherent as a matter of pure semantics. But the Declaration’s practical effect blurred that line:

• By asserting the right in the context of active warfare, the document functionally validated and encouraged continued armed resistance.

• By addressing the world as sovereign entities claiming that right, it invited others to join the struggle.

• By listing grievances and declaring independence, it removed any remaining pretense of reconciliation—closing off peaceful channels and leaving revolution as the only path forward.

So the debate isn’t really about whether the Declaration says “go fight.” It’s about whether a document asserting natural-law rights during ongoing armed conflict can function as de facto advocacy even when it avoids explicit imperatives. Your reader’s distinction is linguistically defensible but pragmatically strained.

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How You Might Respond to Your Reader

Here’s a possible reply that honors their textual insight while defending the original framing:

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[Redacted!]

Megan: I would need to actually think this through, I’m not feeling up to that, and it’s really out of my league, smacking of rhetoric.

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The Deeper Point Still Stands

Even granting your reader’s textual precision, the fundamental paradox survives. The Declaration asserted the right to alter or abolish government and to levy war against oppressive authority. The Constitution then defined levying war against its own authority as treason.

Whether the Declaration advocated revolution or simply declared the right to it doesn’t change the fact that the resulting government treated the exercise of that right as the highest crime. The irony is structural, not linguistic.

That said, your reader’s critique is valuable—it pushes the analysis to be more rigorous about what the text actually says versus what we project onto it. I’d frame this as a refinement of the argument rather than a refutation of it.

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