Natural rights

“ All the foregoing definitions of law, rights and natural liberty, although some of them are expressed in somewhat vague and indefinite terms, nevertheless recognize the primary idea, that law is a fixed principle, resulting from men's natural rights; and that therefore the acknowledgment and security of the natural rights of individuals constitute the whole basis of law as a science, and a sine qua non of government as a legitimate institution. ”

“ The very idea of law originates in men's natural rights. There is no other standard, than natural rights, by which civil law can be measured. Law has always been the name of that rule or principle of justice, which protects those rights. Thus we speak of natural law. ”

“ Having alluded to the state of nature, it may be proper in this place to observe, that the same poetic fancies are constantly played off on “natural rights,” as on liberty and equality; whereas, the slightest reflection ought to teach us, that all society is artificial and conventional, and that no man who enters into society can any farther lay claim to “natural rights” than the law allows. Every regulation of society is so far an infringement on natural rights, if, indeed, we have any correct notion of the meaning of these terms. It is difficult, indeed, to define natural rights. ”

“ And again, "Those rights which God and nature have established, and which are therefore called 'natural rights,' such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws, to be more effectually vested in every man, than they are. ”

“ Therefore when we had shown that the rights exercised in political society were derived from prior 'natural' rights, a question would still remain as to the ground of those natural rights. We should have to ask why certain powers were recognised as powers which should be exercised, and thus became these natural rights. ”

“ Under the natural law, every individual has natural rights, chief of which is the right to the free exercise of all his faculties so long as he does not infringe on the similar right of other individuals. ”

“ Our fathers answered the question of the best and surest protection of natural right by their famous phrase, "the consent of the governed." That is to say, since every man is born with equal natural rights, he is entitled to an equal protection of them with all other men; and since government is that protection, right reason and experience alike demand that every person shall have a voice in the government upon perfectly equal and practicable terms ”

“ There are, as I think we shall all admit, some kinds of natural rights. This summer air that breathes benignant around our national anniversary, is vocal with the traditional eloquence with which those rights were asserted by our fathers. ”

“ That there are certain natural rights, of which men, when they form a social compact, cannot deprive or divest their posterity; among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. ”

“ Proposition 2. And therefore the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no other bounds than those which insure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of those same rights. Has no other bounds? Where is it that it has no other bounds? In what nation-under what government? ”

“ It has ever been my earnest desire to see every man, of every race and every color, fully secured in the enjoyment of all natural rights, and provided with every legitimate means for the defense and maintenance of those rights. ”

“ In short it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one or any number of men at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights when the great end of civil government from the very nature of its institution is for the support, protection and defence of those very rights: the principal of which as is before observed, are life liberty and property. ”

“ Considered in this fashion, the case for natural rights is surely unanswerable. The things that men desire correspond, in some rough fashion, to the things they need. Natural rights are nothing more than the armour evolved to protect their vital interests. ”

“ The rights of men—that is to say, the natural rights of mankind—are indeed sacred things; and if any public measure is proved mischievously to affect them, the objection ought to be fatal to that measure, even if no charter at all could be set up against it. If these natural rights are further affirmed and declared by express covenants, if they are clearly defined and secured against chicane, against power and authority, by written instruments and positive engagements, they are in a still better condition: ”

“ When so regarded, it is evident that the notion of natural rights is one of great value and importance. In the abuse of it, however, it has come to pass that this notion has become a doctrine which affords the most ample space for arbitrary dogmatism, and empty declamation. It has become one of the favorite methods of modern schemers, when they find it difficult to provide means by which men may get what they need in order to enjoy earthly comfort, to put all those necessary things among "natural rights." ”

“ But law is the engine of usurpation upon natural rights, to which the factitious beings called aristocracies, constantly resort. The contest between artificial and natural rights is never equal. One band of these combatants may win rich and substantial booty; the other can win nothing. ”

“ So horrible an example of a great mass of people robbed of their natural rights seemed, by the force of custom and the decorous forms of law, so right and proper that only here and there, adown the centuries, could be heard a voice like Thomas More's protesting against it. ”

“ The provisional representatives then proceeded to frame a declaration of the rights of men and citizens. The natural rights of man were defined to be, equality, liberty, safety, property, and resistance to oppression. ”

“ No one of these natural rights can be taken from any man, without doing him an injustice; and no more than these rights can be given to any one, unless by taking from the natural rights of one or more others. ”

“ The mechanics of natural liberty—that assumed constitution of things by force of which the free hedonistic play of the laws of nature across the open field of individual choice is sure to reach the right outcome—is the hedonistic psychology; and the passing of the doctrine of natural rights and natural liberty, whether as a premise or as a dogma, therefore coincides with the passing of that mechanics of conduct on the validity of which the theoretical acceptance of the dogma depends. ”

“ Political or civil rights, then, are not to be explained by derivation from natural rights, but in regard to both political and natural rights, in any sense in which there can be truly said to be natural rights, the question has to be asked, how it is that certain powers are recognised by men in their intercourse with each other as powers that should be exercised, or of which the possible exercise should be secured. ”

“ Few there are in these modern days who fully appreciate the wonderful blessings of a written Constitution which gives recognition to the fundamental natural rights of man, and provides guaranties against the invasion of these rights. ”

“ For the right to make any and all of them stands on the same grounds of natural law, natural justice, and men's natural rights. If a government has the right to prohibit, or qualify, any one of these contracts, it has the same right to prohibit, or qualify, all of them. Therefore the assertion, by the government, of a right to prohibit, or qualify, any one of them, is equivalent to a denial of all natural right, on the part of individuals, to make any of them. ”

“ But in society men give up their natural rights, if the above is a fair statement of what they are; and the law becomes the rule of right. The whole system of society is artificial, and at war with natural rights ”

“ Government rests on a compact, having its ultimate foundation on the caprice of men, not in their moral nature. What are called natural rights are only certain conveniences agreed upon amongst men; legal fictions—their recognition is their essence, they are the creatures of a compact. Property has no foundation in the nature of things; it may consist of whatever the legislature determines—land, cattle, food, clothing ”

“ But natural liberty—the power of one to do whatever he sees fit to do, subject only to the laws of nature—may have an existence, as by a man placed alone on a mountain, in a desert, or, like Selkirk, on an island in the ocean, for then, there are none his rights to dispute. ”

“ These our great natural rights we keep to ourselves; we will not have them tampered with; respecting them we give to you no commission whatsoever. ”

“ Property, like all natural rights, is entitled by the natural law to protection, but not to govern. Whether it shall be made a basis of political power or not is a question of political prudence, to be determined by the supreme political authority. ”

“ That this is so is proved by the fact that all a man’s natural rights stand upon one and the same basis, viz., that they are the gift of God, or Nature, to him, as an individual, for his own uses, and for his own happiness. ”

“ He not only thought, but he did not hesitate to say, that all construction of the Constitution must be subservient to the supreme duty of giving the amplest protection to the natural rights of man by direct National legislation. ”

“ Thirdly, That the power produced from the aggregate of natural rights, imperfect in power in the individual, cannot be applied to invade the natural rights which are retained in the individual, and in which the power to execute is as perfect as the right itself. ”

“ They found in the principles of natural law how government, civil society, or “sovereignty,” as those writers were apt to call it, was to be built up and regulated. Civil government did not destroy natural rights and the pursuit of happiness. On the contrary, it was intended to give those rights greater security and a fresh force and efficiency. That was the purpose men had in coming together to form a civil society for the benefit of all ”

“ I admit that men have, by the laws of nature, the right of acquiring, and possessing property, and the right of contracting engagements. I admit, that these natural rights have their correspondent natural obligations. ”

“ It is only by abridging their natural liberty, that the state can secure to its subjects the enjoyment of their legal rights—including their legal right to the remnant of natural liberty which it tacitly permits them to retain. ”

“ To disseminate knowledge, and to increase virtue therefore among men, is to establish and maintain the principles on which the recovery and preservation of their inherent natural rights depend; and the State that does this most faithfully, advances most effectually the common cause of Human Nature. ”

“ The rights here mentioned are natural rights. They are so called because they are ours by nature or by birth; and they can not be justly taken from us or alienated. Hence they are also called inalienable. ”

“ Such invasion of natural right to life, health, and education is surely the clearest violation of those great American principles of inherent natural rights so distinctly set forth in the Declaration and Constitution which all Governments must respect and defend, as I will show later on. ”