Men are Endowed by Their Creator with Certain Unalienable Rights.
Acts 17:24-28 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.”
It is obvious from Scripture that our basic rights come from God and not from man, and our Founding Fathers believed also that the basic rights of men did not originate with governments, dictators, kings, but from God and because of the sacredness of those rights they needed to be protected. It was John Locke who said: “No one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.”
However, when we speak about unalienable rights it is important that we know what is meant by unalienable. An unalienable right is one that cannot be repudiated or given to another. It is not something that can be taken away or denied. Blackstone, in his commentaries on the laws of England, states that no human authority can take away those rights, but the owner of the rights might on his own free will forfeit those rights. This is why in our Declaration of Independence we declare that people have unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as our Creator gave.
We also have what is known as “vested rights.” A vested right is one that is created or originates with the community, state or our country for our protection and safety, and as the need arises these vested rights can be changed by our law makers. What seems to happen is that the unalienable rights seem to have become vested rights. While we still have the power of the vote we need to make sure that we vote for people who recognize the difference between these two kinds of rights.
Here are some of our natural rights taken out of the book THE 5000 YEAR LEAP. Natural rights which the Founders knew existed but did not enumerate in the Declaration of Independence – are:
The right of self-government.
The right to bear arms for self-defense.
Develop, and dispose of property.
The right to make personal choices.
The right to a free conscience.
The right to choose a profession.
The right to choose a mate.
The right to beget one’s kind.
The right to assemble.
The right to petition.
The right to free speech.
The right to a free press.
The right to enjoy the fruits of one’s labors.
The right to improve one’s position through barter and sale.
The right to contrive and invent.
The right to explore the natural resources of the earth.
The right to privacy.
The right to provide personal security.
The right to provide nature’s necessities—air, food, water, clothing, and shelter.
The right to a fair trial.
The right of free association.
The right to contract.
What did Jefferson mean by the unalienable right: the pursuit of happiness? This was something that was probably well understood when it was written, but for in the 21st century citizen it brings out the idea of pursuing whatever our heart desires to make us happy whether good or evil.
Perhaps John Adams said it even more clearly: “All men are born free and independent, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.”
Possibly Jefferson took the three unalienable rights that he put into our Declaration of Independence from what Blackstone called the three great natural rights: “right of personal security; the right of personal liberty and the right of private property.” It would seem from what John Adams is saying that the pursuit of happiness mentioned in our Declaration of Independence ties in with “that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.”
Here in America we have been given a rich heritage and each generation needs to protect what has been handed down to us. Outside the archive building in Washington, D.C. are inscribed these words: THE COST OF FREEDOM IS ETERNAL VIGILANCE.