#All men are created full#
The Founders knew full well that while we are born with rights, we need some protection in order to have the freedom to exercise those rights. Indeed, this was the very purpose of the Declaration of Independence: to explain that King George III’s violations of the colonists’ inalienable rights justified the American Revolution.
While the rights listed in the Declaration of Independence-life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness-were inalienable, the Founders understood that individuals are often stopped from exercising them. In keeping with the theme of such British documents as the Magna Carta (1215), John Locke’s Second Treatise on Civil Government (1690), and the English Bill of Rights (1689), they approached the task of guaranteeing liberty by limiting government. They were proud of their heritage as Englishmen. The Founders were well-read in history, so they understood that most people in the world could not easily exercise their rights to practice a religion, or keep the money they earn. In other words, a right is one thing, but the freedom to exercise it is something else. When the Constitution’s Framers wrote, in the Fifth Amendment, that “no person shall be…deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” they were acknowledging that sometimes a person can be deprived of these rights, even though they are part of what it means to be a person.
George Washington is known as the “Father of His Country.” He served as the commander of the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, he was president of the Constitutional Convention, and he was the first President of the United States. The Founders understood that criminals who are a threat to the safety and property of others, for example, need to be prevented from exercising the right to move about where they please. Of course, in order to protect the rights of peaceful people, it could sometimes be necessary to infringe the rights of aggressors. Those rights include “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This essential equality means that no one is born with a natural right to rule over others without their consent, and that governments are obligated to apply the law equally to everyone. All men are equal in the sense that, since we are all human, we are born with certain inherent, natural, and unalienable rights. When the Founders wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” they were not ignoring the obvious differences that make people individuals-differences in appearance, personality, aptitude, skills, and character. Those that arbitrarily took them away possessed no moral authority.
Governments were legitimate to the extent that they protected rights.
They could be denied and violated, but only under carefully limited circumstances could they rightfully be taken away. This is why they called these rights “natural.” They are part of what it means to be a person. The American Founders, however, argued that people have rights regardless of whether they are able to put them into practice. When we study history, however, we realize that many people in the past lacked-and a great many around the world today still lack-the freedom to exercise many of the rights we take for granted. We assume, when we imagine these actions, that there is nobody stopping us from doing them.
#All men are created free#
When most of us think of “rights,” we imagine things we are free to do, like speak our minds, or practice a religion, or sell something that we have made.
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