america’s declaration of natural rights: an examination of the declaration of independence

America’s Declaration of Natural Rights:America’s Declaration of Natural Rights:An Examination of the Declaration of Independence An Examination of the Declaration of Independence

Library of Congress Teaching with Primary SourcesLoyola University Chicago

Dan Wilk

What does liberty mean to you?What does liberty mean to you?

A Look at natural rights over timeA Look at natural rights over time

Thomas Hobbes’s book Leviathan (1651) is considered one of the first works on natural rights.

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/world/images/s37.jpg Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1981/1651. 189. Print.



What is Hobbes saying?

What words stand out to

you?

“The laws shall be merely declaratory of natural rights and natural wrongs, and ... whatever is indifferent to the laws of nature shall be left unnoticed by human legislation . . . and legal tyranny arises whenever there is a departure from this simple principle.” Elisha P. Hurlbut (1845)


“The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. . . . Every man has a right to his own body—to the products of his own labor—to the pro tection of law. . . . That all these laws which are now in force, ad mitting the right of slavery, are, therefore, before God, utterly mill and void . . . and therefore they ought instantly to be abrogated.” William Lloyd Garrison (1833)

Elisha P. Hurlbut, Essays on Human Rights and Their Political Guarantees (1845), cited in Wright, American Interpretations, pp. 257ff.William Lloyd Garrison, “Declaration of Sentiments of the American Anti-Slavery Convention” (December 1833)


Murray Rothbard describes natural rights as the right to private property.

“Liberals generally wish to preserve the concept of “rights” for such “human” rights as freedom of speech, while denying the concept to private property. And yet, on the contrary the concept of “rights” only makes sense as property rights. For not only are there no human rights which are not also property rights, but the former rights lose their absoluteness and clarity and become fuzzy and vulnerable when property rights are not used as the standard. In the first place, there are two senses in which property rights are identical with human rights: one, that property can only accrue to humans, so that their rights to property are rights that belong to human beings; and two, that the person’s right to his own body, his personal liberty, is a property right in his own person as well as a “human right.” But more importantly for our discussion, human rights, when not put in terms of property rights, turn out to be vague and contradictory.” Rothbard (1982)


Rothbard, Murray. The Ethics of Liberty. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press Inc., 1982. 113. Print.

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Jefferson and LockeJefferson and Locke

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/religion/vc006482.jpghttp://myloc.gov/Exhibitions/CreatingtheUS/interactives/declaration/HTML/primary/enlarge1.html

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Jefferson and LockeJefferson and Locke

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“Bacon, Locke, Newton…I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of those superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral sciences“

Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price Paris, January 8, 1789

All men are Created equalAll men are Created equal

A state also of equality, where all the Power and Justification is reciprocal no one having more then another, there being nothing more evident. This equality of Men by Nature. Judicious Hooker Looks upon as so evident in it self, and beyond all question.

ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUALALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL

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Common Ideas

All men are created equal

A state also of equality, where all the Power and Justification is reciprocal no one having more then another

We hold these truths to be self-evident

so evident in it self, and beyond all question.



What does this mean?

divine rights of kings


He [George III] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most scared rights of life and liberty in the

persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another

hemisphere, or to incur a miserable death in their transportation thither. Determined to keep open a market

where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit

or to restrain this execrable commerce.

Ellen Randolph Coolidge to Thomas JeffersonAugust 1, 1825


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(Discussing her trip to New England)...

“It has given me an idea of prosperity and improvement, such as I fear our Southern State cannot

hope for, whilst the canker of slavery eats into our hearts, and diseases the whole body by this

ulcer at the core."



Daguerreotype, ca. 1840, University of Virginia Library.http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/jeffleg.html

“I have no doubt you will find also the state of society there more congenial with your mind, than the rustic scenes you have left: altho these do not want their points of endearment. nay, one single circumstance changed, and their scale would hardly be the lightest. one fatal stain deforms what nature had bestowed on us of her fairest gifts.”


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Thomas Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820




All men are Created equalAll men are Created equalIn 1791, patrick henry writes in his book the “rights of man”, "I begin with charters and corporations. it is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. it operates by a contrary effect, that of taking rights away. rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those right in the majority, leave the right by exclusion in the hands of a few. if charters were constructed so as to express in direct terms 'that every inhabitant, who is not a member of a corporation, shall not exercise the right of voting,' such charters would, in the face, be charter, not of the rights, but of exclusion." With the declaration of independence stating that rights are inherent and inalienable deriving from God, do you feel that convicted felons deserve the same rights as his fellow man?

All men are Created equalAll men are Created equalIn 1791, Patrick Henry writes in his book the “Rights of Man”, "I begin with charters and corporations. it is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. it operates by a contrary effect, that of taking rights away. rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those right in the majority, leave the right by exclusion in the hands of a few. if charters were constructed so as to express in direct terms 'that every inhabitant, who is not a member of a corporation, shall not exercise the right of voting,' such charters would, in the face, be charter, not of the rights, but of exclusion." With the Declaration of Independence stating that rights are inherent and inalienable deriving from God, do you feel that convicted felons deserve the same rights as his fellow man?

Consent of the GovernedConsent of the Governed

And thus much may suffice to shew, that as far as we have any light from History, we have reason to conclude, that all peaceful beginnings of Government have been laid in the Consent of the People.

CONSENT OF THE GOVERNEDCONSENT OF THE GOVERNED



Yet the legislative being only a fiduciary power to act for certain ends, there remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative act contrary to the trust reposed in them; for all power given with trust for the attaining an end being limited by that end, whenever that end is manifestly neglected or opposed, the trust must necessarily be forfeited, and the power devolve into the hands of those that gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security.



Common Ideas

“we have reason to conclude, that all peaceful beginnings of Government have been laid in the Consent of the People.”

“Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the

governed.”


Common Ideas

“remains still in the people a supreme power to remove or alter the legislative act.... and the power devolve into the hands of those that gave it, who may place it anew where they shall think best for their safety and security.”

“it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, & institute a

new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles, &

organizing it’s power in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness”

The Declaration of Independence support the secession of the Confederate States of America. Do you feel the Confederate States of America were exercising natural rights or natural wrongs? Support your answer.


Do you feeling voting in the United States appoints the government power through the consent of the governed? Why or Why not?

TRAIN OF ABUSESTRAIN OF ABUSES

But if a long train of Abuses, Prevarications and Artifices, all tending the same way, making design visible to the People, and they cannot but feel what they lye under, and see whither they are going; ‘tis not to be wonder’d that they should then rouze themselves, and endeavor to put the rule into such hands, which may secure to them the ends for which Government was at first erected.




TRAIN OF ABUSESTRAIN OF ABUSESIt may be demanded here. What if the executive power, being possessed of the force of the commonwealth, shall make use of that force to hinder the meeting and acting of the legislative, when the original constitution or public exigencies require it? I say using force upon the people without authority, and contrary to the trust put in him that does so, is a state of war with the people, who have a right to reinstate their legislative in the exercise of their power. For having erected a legislative, with an intent they should exercise the power of making laws, either at certain set times, or when there is need of it. When they are hindered by any force from what is so necessary to the society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the people consists, the people have the right to remove it by force.


Common IdeasBut if a long train of Abuses, Prevarications and Artifices, all tending the same way, making design visible to the People, and they cannot but feel what they lye under,When a long train of abuses &

usurpations begun at a distinguished period, pursuing

invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under

absolute Despotism...

I say using force upon the people without authority, and contrary to the trust put in him that does so, is a state of war with the people, who have a right to reinstate their legislative in the exercise of their power.... When they are hindered by any force from what is so necessary to the society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the people consists, the people have the right to remove it by force.


Common Ideas

it is their duty, to throw off such government & provide new guards for their future

security such has been patient sufferance of these colonies; & such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former

systems of government


Thomas Jefferson to William S. Smith, November 13, 1787

LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESSHAPPINESS


...what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health limb or

goods of another




...what tends to the preservation of the life, the liberty, health limb

or goods of another

that among these are life, liberty, & the

pursuit of happiness

Common Ideas



One of the first drafts stated “among these are life, liberty, and property.” Franklin, one of the Declaration of Independence draftees removed property. What do you think his reason was?

Do you feel that the phrase “pursuit of happiness” depicts Thomas Hobbes description of Jus Naturale? Why or why not?

REFLECTIONREFLECTION

What do you see that you didn’t expect?

What powerful words and ideas are expressed?

What feelings and thoughts does the presentation trigger in you?

REFLECTIONREFLECTION

Keeping your students in mind, create one question or one activity using what you learned today to stimulate critical thinking in your students. Be prepared to share your ideas with the group.

america’s declaration of natural rights: an examination of the declaration of independence

Documents

human rights

concept of rights

declaratory of natural

terms of property rights

natural wrongs

new york

private property

right of slavery