The 1898 Wilmington, North Carolina Coup D'Etat

"Constitution and laws are not always right. They are often unendurable. When that is so and no other redress is possible men appeal to another right, as sacred as any other human right, the right of revolution. If they fail they take the consequences. If they succeed they are not rebels or revolutionists, but the principles they establish by force become thereby constitutional rights and are such before the act of formulation" (The Brooklyn Citizen, November 12, 1989).

Such a statement woul...