The rights we inherit
The rights of the Declaration of Independence are called “inalienable” because they cannot be given or taken away. Freedom of conscience and religion are at the core. Freedom of speech, the press, property rights and the right to bear arms necessarily follow.
But at the top of the list are “... Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” And it is no accident, that of those three, the right to life leads the pack.
Human life was sacrosanct for the Founders; murder was impermissable, suicide unacceptable, abortion unthinkable, and euthanasia unimagineable. Cherishing and protecting all human life has always been at the heart of the American value system, much more than most other societies at that time, and much more than American society today. But it is the first and foremost of all human rights, and it is the role of government to protect that right, because it is inalienable – and it is inalienable because it is divinely endowed.
But not too far behind the right to life is the right to liberty. Coming from the Latin libertas, “liberty” is the condition of a freeman, the freedom appropriate to being human. It is the ability, first, to exercise one’s free will and, second, to be liberated from onerous or unreasonable intrusions.
Freedom is appropriate to being human because liberty is humane – its opposite is not. Coercion, force, slavery, control and oppression are inhumane because they are demeaning, insulting, condescending, selfish, manipulative, cruel, arrogant and rooted in a superiority complex. Being inhumane is a form of scorn, the direct antithesis of being respectful.
So it comes down to freedom vs. force, humane vs. inhumane, and respect vs. disrespect. The Declaration was calling for freedom and rejecting force. It was insisting on a humane system of civics and raising a political standard against the inhumane. It was launching a national government and a cultural environment built on mutual deference rather than dominance.
It would not be perfect at first and would not all happen at once, but it was setting an unmistakable new course and frontiering a radical new direction. And it was rooted in “these truths” which were fundamentally “self-evident.”
Conversely, what freedom most certainly did NOT mean was an unbridled right to do whatever one wants. The Founders never confused liberty with license. Illegal, immoral, unethical or inhumane choices were inconsistent with liberty or with the rule of law which protected the rights of liberty. In fact, George Washington himself was careful to distinguish “the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness, cherishing the first, avoiding the last.”
Which is why Jefferson included “the pursuit of happiness” as the third inalienable right, though superficial understandings have wrenched it from its classical meaning. Even a cursory historical review, however, shows this clause was not referring to the hedonistic pursuit of pleasure, but the self-disciplined pursuit of human virtue and moral excellence.
For example, Jefferson referred to “the order of nature to be that individual happiness shall be inseparable from the practice of virtue.” And he said, “without virtue, happiness cannot be.”
John Adams echoed this view: “All sober enquiries after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity consists in virtue.”
And Washington believed there was, in his words, “an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness.” The idea was that the good life was achieved by living a good life.
So though not exhaustive, these three rights – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – are at the center of humanity’s divine endowment. If they are to be preserved, it falls to all contemporary freedom-loving Americans to carefully
understand, value and defend their original and true meaning. If we don’t, there is no shortage of impostors trying to replace them.
Brian Schroeder is the former Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction, an ordained minister and founder/president of The ChrisCorps Commission (bschroeder081858@gmail.com)