Founding Principle Number Four - Unalienable Rights
This phrase by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence is another source of controversy, both in society at
large and in the courts. It is not uncommon to hear someone complain about their “Constitutional rights” being violated,
sometimes taking that complaint into the judicial system. Often what is claimed as a Constitutional right is really a privilege
granted by law and not a right at all.
Here Jefferson writes of natural rights endowed by God. These rights are unalienable, meaning that they belong to each
individual as a condition of their humanity. Ownership cannot be transferred to someone else and it cannot be taken from
you without your consent. They constitute the only true rights. Other so-called rights are really privileges or favors. The
difference between a right, a privilege and a favor is determined by the conditions under which it can be realized.
A natural right is one that can be exercised independent of the existence of government and without the assistance of others.
A right that is granted by government is a privilege; a right that is granted by someone else is a favor. Privileges can be
withdrawn, denied or restricted by law. Favors can be withheld by the person from whom you request them. For example,
the right to drive an automobile on the street is a privilege regulated by law. The right to drive that same automobile on your
own property is a natural right. The right to drive it on your neighbor’s property is a favor granted by your neighbor.
Cohabitation is a natural right; civil marriage is a privilege granted and restricted by law. The right to treat yourself for an
illness is a natural right; professional treatment by a physician is a favor even though you pay for the service; if that physician
is employed by the government treatment is a privilege and may be restricted by law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires
that all privileges granted by government must be equally available to all citizens.
A natural right can only be legitimately restricted when its exercise interferes with the natural rights of others. The purpose
of government is to secure these rights and to protect them from encroachment. Jefferson mentions three classes of these
God given, unalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Orators will sometimes express the same thought in
three different ways for emphasis. That seems to be what Jefferson does in this passage. Life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness are all expressions of the same concept. Life has little value without liberty and liberty has little value unless used in
the pursuit of happiness. All of our natural rights are inherent in the basic right to life.
The right to life is the right to live out our natural life from conception to natural death. Abortion for example, is neither a
right nor a privilege for two reasons. First, life is a gift of God, therefore it is sacred and no one has a right to destroy it
arbitrarily. Second, the right to life is unalienable. Alienability refers to the ability to transfer ownership by a legal process to
another owner. The right to life is a gift to the unborn baby, and not to the prospective mother. Since it is unalienable, its
ownership cannot be transferred to another whether that is the prospective mother or the state.
An auxiliary right to the right to life is the right to protect and defend it. That right is recognized in the Constitution and the
law as the right to self-defense. That is the real meaning of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and the
powers of Congress to repel invasions and wage war.
Liberty refers to the right to use the life God has given us as we think best. Life is measured in time; therefore, liberty means
the right to determine for ourselves how we use that time. We can use it for ourselves, freely use it for the benefit of others,
or trade it in the marketplace for wages or profit. The acquisition and accumulation of private property is a product of how
we use our time. The value of our time is measured intangibly by the amount of satisfaction we get from its expenditure and
tangibly by the quantity and quality of the property we accumulate. The relative value of each is determined by us.
Infringement on our time by government is an infringement on our liberty. The most common way government infringes on
our liberty is through taxation. Any taxes over and above the amount necessary to carry out the functions delegated to the
government by the Constitution amounts to an immoral and unjust taking of our time, and therefore our liberty, and are a
form of tyranny.
The exercise of our liberty requires the freedom of conscience, the freedom of thought and the freedom of expression.
These freedoms are protected by the First Amendment. Liberty also requires the freedom of mobility, the ability to move
about in the pursuit of our goals. Amendments four, five, six, seven, eight and nine are all, to one degree or another intended
to protect the right to liberty.
The pursuit of happiness refers to the freedom to pursue our own unique quest for fulfillment in life. The best commentary
on the pursuit of happiness is contained in a story told about Ben Franklin.
“Happiness” is one of several words sprinkled liberally throughout the writings of the founders, whose meaning can only be
determined by the context in which it is used. Occasionally the word “property” is used as a synonym for “happiness” in the
notes of the Philadelphia Convention.
While property may be an element in one’s happiness, as used here and elsewhere, happiness seems to refer to general
prosperity including such things as financial comfort, satisfying social relationships, a contented and peaceful family life,
good health, satisfying labor, and in general, a satisfying life. The famous twentieth century psychologist Abraham Maslow
expressed the same general idea as self-actualization, the highest level of human satisfaction, the successful development and
use of one’s personal talents and abilities.
Founding Principle Number Four – Republicanism
The sole purpose of government is to secure our natural rights — not to grant them, but to secure them. In the history of
mankind, only one system of government has proven effective for this purpose: a republic. Democracies always go from
democracy to socialism, to oligarchy, and finally to despotism.
Karl Marx lays out the first stage of the process of this transition in the Communist Manifesto of 1848.
James Madison says of democracies in Federalist Number 10,
Of all the systems of government devised by man, the most insidious is the socialist system. It presents itself clothed in the
language of democracy. It mocks faith and denounces capitalism as materialistic and avaricious while it teaches envy,
jealousy and greed as virtue. It promises security and ease while ninety percent of its followers live in abject poverty and the
ten percent ruling class lives in the lap of luxury.
We have seen this pattern transpire in one country after another in every part of the globe, from Russia and the Eastern Block
nations to China, North Korea and Cuba; and now we see it in Venezuela and its beginnings in America. The one
characteristic that marks the difference between socialism, despotism, and republicanism is the rule of law. One might argue
that the more law we have the less liberty we enjoy. All of the socialist nations mentioned above rule their people with
draconian laws.
The difference is that in socialist countries law is used to control the people while in republics law is first used to control the
government. If you carefully read the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the land, you will not find a single instance where it
places a requirement or restriction on the actions of the people. Instead, its law places restrictions on government, limiting
its power, not the people’s.
In this, the Founding Fathers were unanimous, only government acting within the constraints of a written constitution,
protecting the rights of the people, will keep the people free and preserve their liberties.Abraham Lincoln began his
Gettysburg Address by reminding us that our nation was “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men
were created equal” and ended by vowing, “Government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not pass from
this earth”.
Benjamin Franklin on the final day of deliberations in the Philadelphia Convention said,
A second important aspect of republicanism is that the laws governing the people be made by representatives elected by the
people and accountable to them. That is why the Constitution restricted the powers of the federal government in making
laws directly applicable to the governing of the people, leaving those laws to the states and the people. Today there are three
main sources of federal law governing the lives of citizens. First, there is Congress whose individual members are elected by
and accountable to less than a fraction of one percent of the population. Second, there are the bureaucracies, unelected and
unaccountable to the people. Third, are the federal courts, again, unelected and unaccountable to the people.
The most onerous laws are those made by the bureaucracies and the courts. They are permitted and sometimes encouraged
by Congress as a means of shielding individual congressmen from the wrath of the people.
The third characteristic of republicanism is intolerance for corruption. We have always had a certain amount of corruption
and always will have, so long as we are governed by men and not Angels. However, the degree of corruption we have seen
within the past few years is unprecedented in the history of our nation.
Is it possible that the people themselves have become so corrupted by the siren song of socialism as to be capable of no other
form of government than despotism, as Franklin suggested?
“…They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness; to secure these rights governments are instituted among men.”
This phrase by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence is another source of controversy, both in society at
large and in the courts. It is not uncommon to hear someone complain about their “Constitutional rights” being violated,
sometimes taking that complaint into the judicial system. Often what is claimed as a Constitutional right is really a privilege
granted by law and not a right at all.
Here Jefferson writes of natural rights endowed by God. These rights are unalienable, meaning that they belong to each
individual as a condition of their humanity. Ownership cannot be transferred to someone else and it cannot be taken from
you without your consent. They constitute the only true rights. Other so-called rights are really privileges or favors. The
difference between a right, a privilege and a favor is determined by the conditions under which it can be realized.
A natural right is one that can be exercised independent of the existence of government and without the assistance of others.
A right that is granted by government is a privilege; a right that is granted by someone else is a favor. Privileges can be
withdrawn, denied or restricted by law. Favors can be withheld by the person from whom you request them. For example,
the right to drive an automobile on the street is a privilege regulated by law. The right to drive that same automobile on your
own property is a natural right. The right to drive it on your neighbor’s property is a favor granted by your neighbor.
Cohabitation is a natural right; civil marriage is a privilege granted and restricted by law. The right to treat yourself for an
illness is a natural right; professional treatment by a physician is a favor even though you pay for the service; if that physician
is employed by the government treatment is a privilege and may be restricted by law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires
that all privileges granted by government must be equally available to all citizens.
A natural right can only be legitimately restricted when its exercise interferes with the natural rights of others. The purpose
of government is to secure these rights and to protect them from encroachment. Jefferson mentions three classes of these
God given, unalienable rights, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Orators will sometimes express the same thought in
three different ways for emphasis. That seems to be what Jefferson does in this passage. Life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness are all expressions of the same concept. Life has little value without liberty and liberty has little value unless used in
the pursuit of happiness. All of our natural rights are inherent in the basic right to life.
The right to life is the right to live out our natural life from conception to natural death. Abortion for example, is neither a
right nor a privilege for two reasons. First, life is a gift of God, therefore it is sacred and no one has a right to destroy it
arbitrarily. Second, the right to life is unalienable. Alienability refers to the ability to transfer ownership by a legal process to
another owner. The right to life is a gift to the unborn baby, and not to the prospective mother. Since it is unalienable, its
ownership cannot be transferred to another whether that is the prospective mother or the state.
An auxiliary right to the right to life is the right to protect and defend it. That right is recognized in the Constitution and the
law as the right to self-defense. That is the real meaning of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms and the
powers of Congress to repel invasions and wage war.
Liberty refers to the right to use the life God has given us as we think best. Life is measured in time; therefore, liberty means
the right to determine for ourselves how we use that time. We can use it for ourselves, freely use it for the benefit of others,
or trade it in the marketplace for wages or profit. The acquisition and accumulation of private property is a product of how
we use our time. The value of our time is measured intangibly by the amount of satisfaction we get from its expenditure and
tangibly by the quantity and quality of the property we accumulate. The relative value of each is determined by us.
Infringement on our time by government is an infringement on our liberty. The most common way government infringes on
our liberty is through taxation. Any taxes over and above the amount necessary to carry out the functions delegated to the
government by the Constitution amounts to an immoral and unjust taking of our time, and therefore our liberty, and are a
form of tyranny.
The exercise of our liberty requires the freedom of conscience, the freedom of thought and the freedom of expression.
These freedoms are protected by the First Amendment. Liberty also requires the freedom of mobility, the ability to move
about in the pursuit of our goals. Amendments four, five, six, seven, eight and nine are all, to one degree or another intended
to protect the right to liberty.
The pursuit of happiness refers to the freedom to pursue our own unique quest for fulfillment in life. The best commentary
on the pursuit of happiness is contained in a story told about Ben Franklin.
- “While conversing with some friends at a local Philadelphia tavern, Franklin was accosted by a drunken man who
had overheard him discussing the Declaration of Independence. Slandering the document, the young fellow shouted at
Franklin: ‘Aw, them words don’t mean nothing at all. Where’s all the happiness the document says it guarantees us?’
The quick-witted statesman sympathetically replied, ‘My friend, the Declaration of Independence only guarantees the
American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself!’”
“Happiness” is one of several words sprinkled liberally throughout the writings of the founders, whose meaning can only be
determined by the context in which it is used. Occasionally the word “property” is used as a synonym for “happiness” in the
notes of the Philadelphia Convention.
While property may be an element in one’s happiness, as used here and elsewhere, happiness seems to refer to general
prosperity including such things as financial comfort, satisfying social relationships, a contented and peaceful family life,
good health, satisfying labor, and in general, a satisfying life. The famous twentieth century psychologist Abraham Maslow
expressed the same general idea as self-actualization, the highest level of human satisfaction, the successful development and
use of one’s personal talents and abilities.
Founding Principle Number Four – Republicanism
- “…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 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…”
The sole purpose of government is to secure our natural rights — not to grant them, but to secure them. In the history of
mankind, only one system of government has proven effective for this purpose: a republic. Democracies always go from
democracy to socialism, to oligarchy, and finally to despotism.
Karl Marx lays out the first stage of the process of this transition in the Communist Manifesto of 1848.
“We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the
position of ruling as to win the battle of democracy.
"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all
instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to
increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible.
"Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property,
and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insuffici-
ent and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the
old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of Production.” ~Karl Marx
James Madison says of democracies in Federalist Number 10,
- “…Hence it is that such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found
incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they
have been violent in their deaths…”
Of all the systems of government devised by man, the most insidious is the socialist system. It presents itself clothed in the
language of democracy. It mocks faith and denounces capitalism as materialistic and avaricious while it teaches envy,
jealousy and greed as virtue. It promises security and ease while ninety percent of its followers live in abject poverty and the
ten percent ruling class lives in the lap of luxury.
We have seen this pattern transpire in one country after another in every part of the globe, from Russia and the Eastern Block
nations to China, North Korea and Cuba; and now we see it in Venezuela and its beginnings in America. The one
characteristic that marks the difference between socialism, despotism, and republicanism is the rule of law. One might argue
that the more law we have the less liberty we enjoy. All of the socialist nations mentioned above rule their people with
draconian laws.
The difference is that in socialist countries law is used to control the people while in republics law is first used to control the
government. If you carefully read the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the land, you will not find a single instance where it
places a requirement or restriction on the actions of the people. Instead, its law places restrictions on government, limiting
its power, not the people’s.
In this, the Founding Fathers were unanimous, only government acting within the constraints of a written constitution,
protecting the rights of the people, will keep the people free and preserve their liberties.Abraham Lincoln began his
Gettysburg Address by reminding us that our nation was “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men
were created equal” and ended by vowing, “Government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not pass from
this earth”.
Benjamin Franklin on the final day of deliberations in the Philadelphia Convention said,
- “In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a general
Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well
administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in
Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic
Government, being incapable of any other”.
A second important aspect of republicanism is that the laws governing the people be made by representatives elected by the
people and accountable to them. That is why the Constitution restricted the powers of the federal government in making
laws directly applicable to the governing of the people, leaving those laws to the states and the people. Today there are three
main sources of federal law governing the lives of citizens. First, there is Congress whose individual members are elected by
and accountable to less than a fraction of one percent of the population. Second, there are the bureaucracies, unelected and
unaccountable to the people. Third, are the federal courts, again, unelected and unaccountable to the people.
The most onerous laws are those made by the bureaucracies and the courts. They are permitted and sometimes encouraged
by Congress as a means of shielding individual congressmen from the wrath of the people.
The third characteristic of republicanism is intolerance for corruption. We have always had a certain amount of corruption
and always will have, so long as we are governed by men and not Angels. However, the degree of corruption we have seen
within the past few years is unprecedented in the history of our nation.
Is it possible that the people themselves have become so corrupted by the siren song of socialism as to be capable of no other
form of government than despotism, as Franklin suggested?
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E-mail address
jfm@illinoisconservative.com
jfm@illinoisconservative.com
| Philosophy of Evil Socialism in America "The struggle of History is not between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat; it is between government and the governed." Jerry McDaniel |
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