Editing Openai/69407b7b-d498-800a-b063-d8499047c831 (section)

===== of a Free People Constituting a State Without Territory =====

When in the course of human events it becomes evident that the instruments designed to secure liberty have been abandoned, nullified, or rendered incoherent by those entrusted with their preservation, a people are not dissolved with them. Rights do not expire with governments; they precede them.

We therefore hold that when a constitution is no longer recognized, enforced, or honored in practice by the institutions claiming its authority, the political body it once animated ceases to exist in fact, though not in memory. In such a condition, allegiance dissolves—not by rebellion, but by neglect—and sovereignty reverts to the people themselves.

It is in this moment, neither revolutionary nor submissive, that we assert continuity where power has failed.