Posted on 12/15/2016 10:42:58 AM PST by Crucial
When Thomas Jefferson crafted the Declaration of Independence, he pointed to “certain unalienable rights” with which we were endowed by our “Creator.”
What did he mean when he wrote the phrase “unalienable rights,” and what rights are “unalienable”?
Jefferson understood “unalienable rights” as fixed rights given to us by our Creator rather than by government. The emphasis on our Creator is crucial, because it shows that the rights are permanent just as the Creator is permanent.
Jefferson’s thought on the source of these rights was impacted by Oxford’s William Blackstone, who described “unalienable rights” as “absolute” rights–showing that they were absolute because they came from him who is absolute, and that they were, are, and always will be, because the Giver of those rights–Jefferson’s “Creator”–was, and is, and always be.
Moreover, because we are “endowed” with them, the rights are inseparable from us: they are part of our humanity.
In a word, the government did not give them and therefore cannot take them away, but the government still strains at ways to suppress them.
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
Inalienable rights = Aliens In USA have no rights.
Easy.
Quote from the movie 1776:
John Adams: Mr. Jefferson? It so happens that the word is UN-alienable, not IN-alienable.
Thomas Jefferson: I’m sorry, Mr. Adams, but “Inalienable” is correct.
John Adams: I happen to be a Harvard graduate, Mr. Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson: Well, I attended William & Mary.
Hancock: Mr. Jefferson, will you concede to Mr. Adams’ request?
Thomas Jefferson: No, sir, I will not.
[grins]
John Adams: Oh, very well, I withdraw it!
Dr. Benjamin Franklin: Oh, good for you, John!
John Adams: I’ll speak to the printer about it later.
"There are rights which it is useless to surrender to the government and which governments have yet always been found to invade. These are the rights of thinking and publishing our thoughts by speaking or writing; the right of free commerce; the right of personal freedom. There are instruments for administering the government so peculiarly trustworthy that we should never leave the legislature at liberty to change them. The new Constitution has secured these in the executive and legislative department, but not in the judiciary. It should have established trials by the people themselves, that is to say, by jury. There are instruments so dangerous to the rights of the nation and which place them so totally at the mercy of their governors that those governors, whether legislative or executive, should be restrained from keeping such instruments on foot but in well-defined cases. Such an instrument is a standing army." --Thomas Jefferson to David Humphreys, 1789. ME 7:323
"Freedom of religion; freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected, I deem [among] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [among] those which ought to shape its administration." --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural Address, 1801. ME 3:322
"One of the amendments to the Constitution... expressly declares that 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press,' thereby guarding in the same sentence and under the same words, the freedom of religion, of speech, and of the press; insomuch that whatever violates either throws down the sanctuary which covers the others." --Thomas Jefferson: Draft Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. ME 17:382
“freedom is necessary in order to grow spiritually.”
Scripture would indicate otherwise....there are many that tell us so.
Because even if my body is restricted, my soul and spirit are free as they belong to God - no bars or chains can touch my spirituality - in fact, ask Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, or Paul & Silas in Acts 16.
History would even indicate that over time, eventually, freedom can lead to moral decline - see Tyler’s Cycle of Nations which has proven true more often than not - and indeed applies to our nation.....
I’m not sure if I get the relevance of your point. In the state of nature that Blackstone describes, I arguably would have the natural right to submit to a condition of slavery, binding myself to another person’s command and thereby give up my prior natural right to self-ownership or liberty in exchange for some consideration such as a payment or even just not being killed by a conqueror. In civil society slavery (the absence of self-ownership or individual liberty) was universally recognized to apply to some individuals throughout recorded history until the Nineteenth Century. Hence liberty was alienable both in the nature and in civil society until slavery was abolished by law.
When Jefferson described liberty an an unalienable right he was expressing an aspiration for the future, not a then current fact.
No Creator = no unalienable rights.
All the pretzel logic in the so-called multi-verse from all the skeptics, atheists, scientists, et cetera cannot make that not true.
Subtract God from the universal equation, and there can be no rights and no morals.
An atheist may CHOOSE to act in a “moral” manner, but he cannot legitimately argue that his choice is any more valid than an atheist who CHOOSES to act in a very “immoral” manner.
inalienable Right: That which can be utilized by an individual w/o the coercion, nor suppression, of another.
Course, I’m just some ‘hick’ whom can barely read the plain English of said Constitution. /s
Yes, you miss the relevance.
What a beautiful day to discuss the Declaration of Independence; on the 225th anniversary of the Bill of Rights.
The Declaration of Independence was the golden apple surrounded by a silver frame; the Constitution.
A most interesting way to learn why Jefferson’s "inalienable" became "unalienable" is to watch a movie titled "1776".
I really enjoyed that movie. Thank you for reminding me of it. Time to watch it again.
I think of inalienable rights as intrinsic to man’s nature. They are above government and any government that claims the right to bestow them or take them away is illegitimate.
A law that is not interpreted as originally written is not the same law. This is how the Left gets its way without going through the Constitutional process.
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