A General Introduction: “Unalienable Rights.”
“To a patriot, defending life and liberty is the pursuit of happiness.” – Publius
What are “unalienable rights?”
Rights granted by our Creator are absolute, and inherent. Unalienable rights
can only be denied to a people in bondage. Governments can only grant
privileges, not rights. Our failure to give due diligence to keeping a watchful
eye on our rights has allowed the government to encroach more and more on our
lives, our liberties, our property, and our God-given right to pursuits of
happiness.
The Founding Fathers knew selling
the Constitution to the People was going to be a daunting task, because many
simply did not trust any central government. Alexander
Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison authored a total of 85 essays from
October 27, 1787 – June 14, 1788 explaining the Constitution, and dispelling
myths and rumors spread by its opponents. The essays were published separately
for the most part using the pseudonym “Publius,”
and then later compiled into two volumes, thereafter referred to as “The Federalist
Papers.”
·
The First Continental
Congress met from
September 5 to October 26, 1774, producing the Association of 1774, which called
on colonists to boycott British goods, and form committees to enforce the
boycott. Journals of the Continental
Congress
·
The Second Continental
Congress ran from
May 10, 1775, to March 2, 1789, producing the Declaration of Independence,
Articles of Confederation, and U.S. Constitution. Journals of the Continental
Congress
·
The Third Continental
Congress first convened
November 11-22, 2009, producing the Articles of Freedom, which includes
instructions to our public servants, and recommendations for peaceful civic
action by the citizenry. Third Continental Congress
On November 21, 2009, the 220th
anniversary of North Carolina ratifying the Constitution, the Third Continental
Congress, 2009 Session, produced the Articles
of Freedom, with instructions to our public servants in federal and state
government, and impassioned pleas to the People of the United States to restore
Constitutional governance through peaceful civic actions. The Articles of
Freedom will be widely released to the public.
The “Articles of Freedom” are the result of over 14,000 Delegate-hours expended by the
Third Continental Congress to address the Intolerable Acts of Congress,
including the Patriot Act, the privately-owned Federal Reserve,
un-Constitutional wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a litany of other
violations of the Constitution by the current and former Administrations over
several decades, which have placed our unalienable rights, liberties, and
freedom in grave peril.
The “New Federalist Papers”
will consist of a minimum of 30 essays, authored by Delegates to the Third
Continental Congress. Volume III, Essays 86-95 will address our God-given
“unalienable rights,” and the development and ratification of the Bill of
Rights. Volume IV, Essays 96-115 will explain the “Articles of Freedom.”
Thomas Jefferson wrote about the “safest depository,” stating,
"Who will govern the governors?" There is
only one force in the nation that can be depended upon to keep the government
pure and the governors honest, and that is the people themselves. They alone,
if well informed, are capable of preventing the corruption of power, and of
restoring the nation to its rightful course if it should go astray. They alone
are the safest depository of the ultimate powers of government”.
"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body
and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
Hamilton, not sensing the need to include a bill of rights
wrote,
“We may
safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers
against the encroachments of the national authority.”
Alexander Hamilton,
Federalist 85
Regrettably, the state legislatures
have failed to protect the rights of the state, and the People. This must
change. Introduce your state legislators to the 10th Amendment. Demand
they protect your state’s sovereignty, and your liberty.
The Founders stopped writing essays
once the Constitution was ratified by the ninth state, New Hampshire. Publius
never wrote any essays to address the nearly 100 unique amendments the states
were proposing be added to the New Constitution. Had they continued writing the
Federalist Papers, perhaps the Bill of Rights would have included even more
protections against the tyranny of ambitious and arrogant men.
In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote,
“We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights,
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to 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.”
-Declaration
of Independence, July 4, 1776, Library of Congress
On September 17, 1787, delegates to the
Constitutional Convention signed the “New
Constitution” which was sent to the 13 states two weeks later on Sept. 28,
1787. It would be four long years before the Constitution was ratified by all
13 original states.
In the Preamble to the Constitution, James Madison wrote,
“We the People of the United
States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure
domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general
Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
-U.S.
Constitution, Sept. 17, 1787, Library of Congress
The time is once again upon us to
stand up against the tyranny, against traitors in our own government, and in
defense of our unalienable God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness.
In 42 B.C., Roman Statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero warned,
“A
nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from
within. An enemy at the gates is less
formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within
the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the
very halls of government itself. For the
traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims,
and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that
lies deep in the hearts of all men. He
rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to
undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can
no longer resist. A murderer is less to
fear. The traitor is the plague.”
Marcus Tullius
Cicero, Roman Statesman, philosopher and orator, 42 B.C
Mr. William Lenoir, at North Carolina’s ratification debates
said,
“A constitution ought to be understood by
every one. The most humble and trifling characters in the country have a right
to know what foundation they stand upon.”
Vol.
IV, Page 209, August 2, 1788, Elliot’s Debates
George Washington, in his Sept. 19, 1796 Farewell Address to the
American People, warned,
“Against
the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me,
fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake,
since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most
baneful foes of republican government.”
(President
George Washington’s Farewell Address, Sept. 19, 1796)
People in power rarely choose to
give up that power, even for the greater good. History proves that over time,
liberty yields to tyranny. Unalienable rights are reduced to mere privileges
when the citizenry turn their backs on public affairs.
In 1820, Former President Thomas Jefferson wrote,
"I
know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people
themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their
control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them,
but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses
of constitutional power."
-Thomas
Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820.
Some believe it is the job of the
government to keep us safe. While that argument does have some merit, the
primary job of the Federal Government is to protect our unalienable rights, and
to keep us free. The Declaration of Independence was not merely a proclamation
of freedom from the British Empire, but from all tyranny, foreign and domestic.
The U.S. Constitution is the “employee
handbook” for our public servants. All elected officials take an oath to uphold
and defend the Constitution. In the real world, an employee who fails to obey
the employee handbook gets fired. We should expect and accept no less than a
strict obedience by our public servants to keep their oath.
The Honorable Oliver Wolcott said it best on Jan. 7, 1788,
during the ratification debates in Connecticut, when he stated,
“The
Constitution enjoins an oath upon all the officers of the United States. This
is a direct appeal to that God which is the avenger of perjury. Such an appeal
to Him is a full acknowledgment of His being and Providence.” (Hon.
Oliver Wolcott, Jan. 7, 1788, Elliot’s Debates, Vol. II, Page 202)
While the New Constitution was not
perfect, it did establish the framework for self-governance. The establishment
of the Constitutional Republic of the United States of America was the first of
its kind in world history.
The first five states to ratify the
Constitution, namely Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, and
Connecticut, did so without requesting or suggesting a single amendment.
Maryland, the 7th state to ratify the Constitution also offered no
amendments.
Prior to ratifying the Constitution,
several States expressed great concern that our unalienable rights were not
protected by the New Constitution. Some states wanted it amended prior to
ratification. Other states included a laundry list of changes in their
ratification documents that they wanted made to the New Constitution that would
protect life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness.
While the structure of the
government was secured, the rights of the individual were not. Massachusetts
was the first state to include a list of amendments, nine in total, as part of
its ratification documents, partly on the promise that amendments to protect
the unalienable rights of the people would be forthcoming.
New Hampshire embraced
Massachusetts’ nine proposed amendments, adding three more of its’ own. In all,
seven states added amendments to their ratification documents, or refused to ratify
the Constitution until a bill of rights was included. They simply did not trust
big government, and rightly so.
Jefferson wrote Madison about his desires for amendments to the
Constitution, by an N.C. Delegate in August, 1788.
Mr. Willie Jones: “As great names
have been mentioned, I beg leave to mention the authority of Mr. Jefferson,
whose great abilities and respectability are well known. When the Convention
sat in Richmond, in Virginia, Mr. Madison received a letter from him. In that
letter he said he wished nine states would adopt it, not because it deserved
ratification, but to preserve the Union. But he wished that the other four
states would reject it, that there might be a certainty of obtaining
amendments.”
Elliot’s Debates, Volume IV, Page
226, N.C.
Both North Carolina and Rhode Island
took Thomas Jefferson’s advice, and refused to ratify the Constitution until amendments
protecting our unalienable rights had been accepted by Congress.
The remaining seven states submitted
over 200 amendments to protect our “unalienable rights,” some prior to ratification
of the Constitution, some after. 12 proposed amendments were sent to the states
on Sept. 25, 1789.
James Madison, while serving in the
House of Representatives in the 1st U.S. Congress sponsored a series
of amendments to protect individual rights. Twelve Amendments were approved by
Congress and sent to states on Sept. 25, 1789. Ten were ratified, becoming the
Bill of Rights on Dec. 15, 1791.
The first ten Amendments to the U.S.
Constitution, commonly known as the Bill of Rights, became part of the Constitution
on Dec. 15, 1791 when Virginia became the 11th state to ratify them.
During Connecticut’s state convention, the Honorable Oliver
Wolcott, debating in favor of ratification, stated,
“Mankind
may be corrupt, and give up the cause of freedom; but I believe that love of
liberty which prevails among the people of this country will prevent such a
dire calamity.
So well
guarded is this Constitution throughout, that it seems impossible that the
rights either of the states or of the people should ever be destroyed.” (Hon.
Oliver Wolcott, Jan. 7, 1788, Elliot’s Debates, Vol. II, Page 202)
Although the Bill of Rights became
binding when Virginia ratified them on Dec. 15, 1791, it would be another 148
years before Connecticut, Georgia, and Massachusetts would ratify the first 10
Amendments to the Constitution.
(Thomas
Jefferson Papers Series 1, Pages 624-627, Library of Congress)
-Publius,
Essay 86
December 7,
2009
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