I got mine from the State of NH Constitution, Article 10, the right to have a revoluition. Kinda sad, 23 states had these Articles, NH is the only one left......
Cool.
[
Art.] 10. [Right of Revolution.] Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
June 2, 1784
Here's the obit of a guy who used Article 10 successfully in a legal defense. Involved a chainsaw. lol
http://www.legacy.com/seacoastonline/Obituaries.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=123962607
Guy Chichester
RYE — Local human rights and environmental activist Guy Chichester's life ended peacefully Sunday at the age of 73. After surviving a heart attack several years ago that required the insertion of a pacemaker into his chest, Chichester died in his home, surrounded by family and friends.
"Guy was one of a kind," said longtime friend and lawyer Patrick Fleming. "He was committed to making the world a better place, and if more people did what he did, it would be."
He was a veteran of the Korean War who served with the U.S. Navy.
Fleming successfully defended Chichester in one of the most dramatic protest cases stemming from the construction of the Seabrook Station nuclear power plant in Seabrook in the 1970s. In 1990, shortly after the plant went online, Chichester, a founding member of the Clamshell Alliance, an anti-Seabrook, anti-nuclear group, took a chain saw to one of the plant's warning siren polls. He was charged with criminal mischief, a Class B felony, in the incident.
Although there was no doubt that he had cut down the pole, Chichester was acquitted. In his appeal, Fleming argued that, according to Article 10 of the New Hampshire Constitution, any citizen has a right to act to protect his or herself when the state fails to do so.
"It was the first time Article 10 had been used successfully by a defense case," Fleming remembered.
However, Chichester's activism went even further back than that. He was a leader in the fight against plans by Aristotle Onassis in 1973-74 to build a major oil refinery on the New Hampshire coast. It was during that fight that Portsmouth resident Jim Horrigan first met Chichester.
"He was a radical spokesman for the environment, particularly the coastal environment, and he was willing to take some risks speaking out against things that he felt damaged that environment," Horrigan said. "He was very effective."
It was at that time that State Rep. Robert "Rennie" Cushing, D-Hampton, met Chichester. Cushing, an activist in his own right, also worked in opposition to both the refinery and the nuclear plant.
"It was during the refinery fight that Guy began learning about the state's home-rule tradition," Cushing, who has known Chichester for 35 years, said. "I was organizing with Guy in Seabrook and the surrounding towns to make the democratic process work."
Cushing said he was with Chichester at a Town Meeting in Seabrook in 1976, when voters turned down the prospect of having a nuclear plant in their community. It was a vote that was ultimately ignored.
"What I liked about Guy was his working-class sensibilities," the Hampton legislator said. "He had a love of community that made him comfortable with everyone he spoke to."
Steve Varnum interviewed Chichester for the Concord Monitor about a decade ago. Varnum, who subsequently ran the Priorities Campaign in New Hampshire, said he would cross paths with the Rye man throughout the subsequent years.
"He was obviously interested in various progressive actions," Varnum said. "He was very supportive and often acted as a guide to younger activists."
Chichester was born Feb. 11, 1935, in Freeport, N.Y., on Long Island.
A carpenter by trade, he had made his home in Rye since 1970. Over the years, he was consistently involved in working for social change, donating his energies to a wide variety of civic and community organizations.
In 1990, he was the newly formed New Hampshire Green Party's candidate for governor. However, his name did not appear on the ballot that year because checklist supervisors in several communities could not verify the validity of 571 signatures that appeared on Chichester's nomination papers.
However, nothing appeared to daunt the Rye activist. In 2005, he was arrested again, this time for sitting in at the Concord offices of Sen. Judd Gregg. Chichester was one of eight people taken into custody.
They were there to speak to the Senator about the war in Iraq and were arrested after they failed to heed an order to leave the premises. Chichester and the others refused to pay the fine and took the issue to court in an action the media dubbed the case of the "Concord 8."
The following year, all eight defendants were convicted and ordered to pay a fine of $500.
Most recently, Chichester again became the moving force behind the resurgence of the Seacoast Anti-Pollution League, a public safety group that grew out of the Clamshell Alliance. It was an organization he had help found in the 1980s.
