Issue 12.17
Part 2
This is the second part of a three part series sharing a paper by Eyler Robert Coates, Sr. I find it to be well-written and clearly thought out. All of it is quoted and is his writing. His extensive works are in the University of Virginia archives and can also be located through the link at the bottom of this article.
They (Natural Rights) are spoken of as the gift of Nature or of God, since God is conceived as the Author of Nature and the Creator of man. Hence, all men are in their very essence “endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights.” The word “inherent” was in Jefferson’s original version of the Declaration, but was replaced by Congress with the word “certain.”
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
However, “inherent” is preferred by some, because it makes clearer the natural character of these rights, and that they come with our human nature and accompany life itself.
“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.” –Thomas Jefferson: Rights of British America, 1774.
It should be understood that Natural Rights are not rights that have been determined to have actually been recognized or exercised at some early stage in the development of mankind, neither do they necessarily represent actual conditions that existed when man was in his prehistoric “natural” or uncivilized state. Rather, they are rights that are the heritage of man as can be reasonably determined by examining his nature and his potential for optimum existence in this world. They are his birthright regardless of whether mankind actually has enjoyed these rights at any previous stage of development, and it is that inherent entitlement that makes them “natural.” Of course, every person born into this world can be said to be “born free,” and mankind did possess these natural rights as an entitlement at every stage of his development, including the earliest; but primitive (and later) societies inevitably prevented the full enjoyment of these rights. It is only in the later stages of his development, in a highly developed civilization based on principles and laws, that mankind has had the opportunity for actually establishing and enjoying these rights in their fullness, and the story of mankind is the story of the struggle to establish government that recognized these natural rights.
“[Montesquieu wrote in Spirit of the Laws, VIII,c.3:] ‘In the state of nature, indeed, all men are born equal; but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the laws.'” –Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.
The final segment will appear in my next article. You can link to Mr. Coates website at this link.
http://eyler.freeservers.com/JeffPers/jefpcont.htm
Lynn West is a thinker, a teacher and a patriot. You can reach him through email at forgingthefuture2021@gmail.com or through this newspaper. Liberty is a state of being which must be continually created. These articles can help all of us discover the ways we can contribute to that outcome.