
Student or Learner
The following in red is confusing. Please explain it more easily.
Lincoln had said during a speech in Congress. "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. ...... Nor is the right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit."
Is this saying "any portion of such people that can choose to exercise the right may revolutionize the territory they inhabit and make the territory they inhabit their own land or nation"?
Thank you.
Yes. He is saying that, for example, if all of the people in the United States, for example, decide their government is not serving them, they can rise up and institute a new one. Then he says that it does not take the entire people of the country. If the people in Texas decide the US gov't isn't working for them, then just Texas can rise up and institute a new gov't for Texas.
This is in no way limited to the United States.
Read the Declaration of Independence.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
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