Inherent Right To Self Defense Part III: The Declaration of Independence
[Denizen Commentary - Kat: apologies for taking so long to follow up]
Continuing Series on the Inherent Right to Self Defense and its effect on the Second Amendment.
Part I: Setting the Precedent. In Part I, I argue that the founding fathers of this nation had set the historical precedent for the right to "keep and bear arms", both as a defense against oppression of the government and as a personal defense against other men and the elements.
Part II: Social Contract In Part II, I reflected on the philosophies that influenced the founding fathers, noting the differences between the Hobbesian and Lockean theories of "social contract".
I was reminded by the blog Of Arms and the Law that even Hobbes insisted that man retains the "inalienable" right to self defense regardless of the rights given to the "Leviathan" state. Mr. Hardy stated that the current trend for citizens to give up even that right was beyond Hobbes' theory on the "social contract".
The founders were fond of Locke for several reasons. In his Two Treatise on Government, he asserts the right to rebellion. He insists that the power of government comes from the governed. He believes that all men are capable of governing themselves through a democracy or a republic. As opposed to Hobbes who believed that a monarchy was preferable. Locke and Hobbes both link all "inalienable rights" of mankind to an incorruptible, unassailable, indestructible source: God.
Today, we debate the meaning of the words in the Constitution. We debate the existence of God. We debate what power should belong to the state and the nation. And we are mindful that the "rule of the majority" can be as tyrannically absolute as any single ruler.
Our founders were not hesitant in stating exactly where our rights came from nor in claiming every right for themselves, "the people" and "all men". They twice state the origin of these rights in the opening and second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them,
and,
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,
The Declaration of Independence, after stating the need to declare their intent to the world at large, deliberately enshrines the individual as the source of all government power. Not simply as the subject of government, but as "men" who had "unalienable rights" above and beyond any known or written laws of men; above and beyond any government or individual in power. These rights were "unalienable" because the source of that power did not come from other men or governments, but from an unassailable and indestructible source: "their Creator".
The founders went on to write that "to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". Stating again that the rights of individuals come before any rights of the government and that government is only established to "secure" those rights and does not establish nor give these rights as they already exist.
This was also deliberate wording since the known governments at the time of our founding were all monarchies. Whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or some other monotheist or polytheist religion, every one of them had kings or queens who claimed their right to rule and act by fiat as a "divine right" due to their appointment or anointment by a deity or His representative on earth (priests, popes, etc). This divine right extended so far as to have the power of life or death over their subjects for various and often arbitrary reasons.
"Among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
For this reason, it was neither an accident of sentence structure nor the act of a capricious mind that placed the "unalienable" right to "Life" (with a capital "L") first among the three "unalienable rights". Without "Life", "Liberty" does not exist and "Happiness" cannot be pursued. Neither were they content with defending "Life" only against the arbitrary application of government power. By insisting that "all men are created equal", they were stating that the right to "Life" was equally "unalienable" from or by any man, regardless of his position, whether a king or toiling farmer.
Further, they did not believe that this declaration was meant for them and their time alone. With equal deliberation, they wrote that it is the "right" and "duty" of the people to "throw off such Government" and "to provide new Guards for their future security." They did not imagine that the need for defense of the individual and his rights would end once they rebelled and obtained their freedom. Instead, they saw it as a long term, if not infinite, necessity.
Nor were they insensible to the idea that, by rebelling and taking the power to create a government, they might create something worse. Or, that, by its existence and growth, government can become despotic despite its best intentions.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
This was not only true in their time, but true throughout history, in our present and likely in our future. By their statement of experience, their intent to secure the future and their own actions, it is clear that their intent was to insure the power of government, the power to change it and the power to secure the right to "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" remained infinitely in the hands of the individual.
