Facebook friend Marvin L. Stewart shared this excellent summary with me. I pass it on to you. The Declaration of Independence restates a second principle of the laws of nature and of natures God. It declares that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness . . . . Unalienable (or inalienable) means undeniable or inherent. Unalienable rights are incapable of being lost or sold. Unalienable rights are retained despite government decrees to the contrary because civil government does not grant them in the first case. Moreover, no future generation may be disenfranchised of any unalienable right by the present generation. The protection of unalienable rights is common in many state constitutions. The Declaration tells us why these permanent characteristics attach to unalienable rights. It recognizes that unalienable rights are defined by God, not by the civil government. Civil recognition of the idea that unalienable rights come from God is a fundamental element of the laws of nature. Whether it is also is a tenet of religion is quite beside the framers legal concern. In the legal sense, therefore, the law of unalienable rights is not a religious establishment, but is rather a legal convention from eternity. Lex est ab æterno. The Declaration defines other unalienable rights besides life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It discusses the right of the people to select the form of government that will serve them and protect their rights. It explains that Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. President George Washington declared that, The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. Abraham Lincoln described the idea in nautical terms declaring government by consent the leading principle--the sheet anchor of American republicanism. Since the people have an unalienable right to choose their own form of government and define its powers under law, the Declaration also recognized that the people have an unalienable right to alter or abolish that form of government under the law. The Declaration acknowledges the legal preconditions: 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 phrase destructive of these Ends refers to destruction of the unalienable rights which civil government is originally instituted to preserve. It was the right to alter or abolish the form of government which the people exercised when independence was declared from Great Britain and the Revolutionary War was subsequently waged. Thus, the Declaration established a legal consensus on several principles derived from the laws of nature and of natures God. The Declaration translated the common principles of equality and unalienable rights into positive law. Civil government was and is obliged to observe the rule of legal equality. It must recognize that all human beings enjoy certain unalienable rights from God--rights that are not created by the civil government, but which that government is nevertheless obligated to protect to the extent that the people articulate such rights in their constitutions or statutes. Therefore the U.S. Constitution cannot be examined apart from the Declaration of Independence as affirmed by Article VII the Attestation Clause of the U.S. Constitution.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 14:33:02 +0000
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