"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."
Here is one of the most famous things ever written. It is also one of the most bold and powerful ideas ever conceived.
Abraham Lincoln, himself born poor in the backwoods of Kentucky, thought that the idea of equality had remade the way that people thought about government, and indeed more than government. In one of his most famous speeches, he said that equality is the "father of all moral principle in us." A strong statement. But what does it mean?
Does Equality Mean Equal in All Respects?
I think the authors of that notable instrument intended to include all men, but they did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects. They did not mean to say all were equal in color, size, intellect, moral developments, or social capacity. They defined with tolerable distinctness, in what respects they did consider all men created equal-equal in "certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This they said, and this meant.
Abraham Lincoln, Speech on the Dred Scott Decision, June 26, 1857
In one meaning of the term "equality," the statement "all men are created equal" is obviously silly. We simply are not equal, or even very much alike. Joe is short and Harry tall. Jane is blonde and Brenda red-haired. Janet does her math with ease; Jeff struggles.
We are obviously not "equal," if equal means that we look alike, talk the same, run as fast, have as much money, or think as quickly as each other. Everyone knows this without being told. Thomas Jefferson--and everyone else in his day--knew it just as well as we do.
The term equality can be a little confusing, if we concentrate only on the human beings who are "created equal." That is because human beings are equal in some way or ways, but they are very unequal in many other ways. Perhaps the equality of people will be clear, if we consider some other kind of thing, some other kind of being. Perhaps there are beings, in comparison to which our equality to one another is clear, because we are so completely unequal to that other thing.
We do not have to look far, to find such a being. It is right there, in the Declaration of Independence. It is the Creator.
Man and God: Is there Anything Superior to Man?
But what is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In creating a government which is to be run by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.
James Madison, Federalist 51, 1787
The Declaration says: "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...." Somehow this equality has to do with Rights, and these rights are an "endowment." An endowment is a present or a gift, something that we keep forever. In the Declaration, the giver of the present is named. He is named four times, in fact. He is the Creator. He is the author of the "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." He is the "Supreme Judge of the world." He is "Divine Providence."
What does endowment mean? __________ In reference to God list the four names used:
1)______________ 2)____________ 3)______________ 4)__________________The Declaration leaves no doubt that we are not equal to this Creator. We are His inferiors. He gives us a gift, not we Him. We ask for His protection. God does not ask our consent before imposing His laws on us. We do not question His right to rule. We look to Him as the Judge of our actions. He is supreme.
The Creator has a lot of important jobs, many more than we would ever give to a single man. He is a lawmaker, rather like a member of Congress. He is a Judge, rather like a member of the Supreme Court. He is a protector, rather like a policeman or an executive official. We would never give all those jobs to a single human being. We would not trust anyone with that much power. But God can be trusted, because He is a higher sort of being than we are.
List the three branches of the United States Government:
Yes, we human beings are created equal. No difference between any two of us is so great as the difference between any one of us and God.
Man and Beast: Are some Beings Inferior to Man?
When compared to God or to angels, human beings look very small. But that is not the whole story. Thomas Jefferson, the great author of the Declaration of Independence, died precisely fifty years to the day after it was adopted, on July 4, 1826. A few days before his death, he wrote the last letter of his life (of which we have record) in celebration of the Declaration. He wrote:
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826
Here then is the difference between man and beast. Horses are not born exactly "with saddles on their backs." But they are born with bodies well able to carry saddles and riders. They are born, more importantly, with natures governed by the commands of instinct. They do not choose for themselves. They do not deliberate between right and wrong. They do not reason. If they are to be guided by reason, then we must guide them. They cannot do it for themselves.They fall then under the dominion, the authority, of human beings, who are capable of choosing right from wrong, who are then capable of guiding themselves, and other creatures, toward a good end (or an evil one).
We do not think it wrong for a human being to own an animal, so long as he treats that animal justly. We rule our pets despotically-that is to say we make decisions for them, in their own interest as well as ours, and without consulting them. This does not mean we do not love our pets. Indeed they may be among the most important things in our lives.
But we do not ask for their consent. They could not give it if we did.
Equality of Rights: What is the Basis of Human Equality?
To understand equality, then, we must understand rights. We are equal in our rights. That is the great political fact concerning human beings. It stems from the great natural fact that we are a certain kind of creature with a certain nature.
Let us consider exactly what this equality means.
Where Do We Get These Rights?
These rights of ours are said to be "unalienable." That means that they are ours. They belong to each of us, individually, and they cannot be taken away.
"Unalienable" means all this. And it means something more, something even stronger. It means that these rights are so firmly ours, that even we ourselves cannot give them away.
They are somehow beyond even our own choice. They are part of us, in the same way that our legs, our arms, or our hearts are part of us. We cannot choose to have four legs or three hearts. Nor can we choose to have more rights than we have, or fewer than we have.
These rights are then part of our nature created by God. If we know what our nature is, then we can understand better what our rights are.
Do Our Rights Still Belong to Us, Even When They Are Violated?
[The signers of the Declaration of Independence] did not mean to assert the obvious untruth, that all were then actually enjoying that equality, nor yet, that they were about to confer it immediately upon them. In fact they had no power to confer such a boon. They meant simply to declare the right, so that the enforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances should permit. They meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all; constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence, and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere.
Abraham Lincoln, Speech on the Dred Scott Decision, June 26, 1857
Rights, you may notice, are at least as often violated as they are respected. In Hitler's Germany, millions of people were murdered just because they happened to be Jews. In Stalin's Soviet Union, millions more were murdered because they happened to own small farms and did not want to give them up. Slavery was legal nearly everywhere in the world until well into the 19th century (Thomas Jefferson, the very author of the Declaration, was himself an owner of slaves). This is the sorry story of government, which has been mostly unjust and oppressive, right up to the current day.
In the Declaration of Independence, a difference is recognized between the actual enjoyment of one's rights, and the ownership of them. In the Declaration, we have our rights no matter what. Just because a person is persecuted does not make it right.
We may be persecuted, but we never are rightfully persecuted. We may be denied the exercise of our rights, but the rights themselves can never be taken from us.
Abraham Lincoln thought that the meaning of the Declaration consisted in the fact that it makes this point very clear. Once it is clear that we have our rights, then we can judge every action, of every government, by whether or not it protects our rights. In this way, Lincoln said, the Declaration provided "a standard maxim for a free society."
What Is a Right and What is Not?
In our country, the term "right" is a powerful thing. If something is a right, then it is the whole purpose of our country--of any decent country--to protect it. The Declaration says, "To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men…"
If the whole point of government is to secure rights, then the definition of rights matters very much. For this reason Americans have often discussed and often argued about the meaning of the term "rights." Sometimes these arguments have been very serious. Such arguments continue today.
One can understand what is meant by the term "right" by considering two important lists of rights, one in the Declaration, and the other in the Constitution.
Rights Listed in the Declaration: What Are Natural Rights?
[American religions teach] honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man. . . . [w]ith all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens--a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
Three rights are named in the Declaration of Independence itself: "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."
These three are plainly vital.
- Each person has a right to his life. Each of us is given a life, and it is naturally our own. To kill a person is to deprive him of something that belongs to him alone.
- Each person has a right to liberty, or freedom. Every person is born free, and he remains free unless someone deprives him of that freedom. To place a person in chains is to violate a basic right.
- Each person has a right to the "pursuit of happiness." No one can, of course, have a right to happiness itself. Happiness is an achievement. It depends upon our own work. It depends upon our own virtue. It depends upon good fortune. In the Declaration, we have the natural right to pursue happiness, because we have the natural capacity to pursue it, and because we will enjoy its benefit or suffer its deprivation ourselves. No one else can do that for us.
These rights are natural rights. They belong to us by nature. They belong to all people, in all times and places. Whenever they are taken from us, we are deprived of something that is naturally our own, something that cannot belong to another.
Are there Natural Rights Other than those Listed in the Declaration?
The Constitution includes a longer list of rights, especially at the end where a "Bill of Rights" is added in the first ten amendments to the Constitution.
Some of these rights are very like the rights listed in the Declaration. The Fifth Amendment, for example, says that Congress may not deprive anyone of "life, liberty, or property without due process of law." This means that only someone found guilty of a crime or an injury to another can be deprived of these things, and only then according to a process that is established in law and applies the same to everyone.
This list in the Constitution substitutes "property" in place of the Declaration's "pursuit of Happiness." This is common in the founding. It happens, for example, in both the Virginia Declaration of Right and the Massachusetts Bill of Rights, both of which are written within a few days of the Declaration.
One does not need to know very much about government to see the sense of this provision. Life, liberty, and property are precious. They should not be taken away unless one has done something to deserve it. They are natural rights.
Other rights in the Constitution also fit this description. One can see immediately why freedom of speech is precious. One can see why the freedoms of worship, of the press, of peaceable assembly (that is, people getting together to discuss common public concerns) are rights that we possess.
Can Human Law Grant Rights?
Some rights in the Constitution require that one understand specific things about government, in order to see their importance. In the Fourth Amendment, government officers are forbidden to search one's house without first getting a warrant from a court mentioning the specific place to be searched. The Fifth Amendment requires an indictment by a Grand Jury. The Third requires that the government get the consent of a homeowner before it orders troops to be sheltered in his house.
These are specific rights, preventing specific abuses of government power, abuses with which the founders had become familiar through direct experience or through study.
We can call these rights positive rights, meaning that they are made by a positive act of human beings. We recognize these rights, because we perceive them necessary to the preservation of our natural rights. Trial by jury, for example, enables us to punish those who deprive others of their rights, and at the same time to be sure that officers in the government do not have the power to impose punishment solely on their own power.
We judge these positive rights by whether they actually do contribute to the preservation of our natural rights. When we debate today what is a right and what is not, we employ this kind of reasoning constantly.
Is there any Right that Encompasses all the Other Rights?
This term in its particular application means "that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual." In its larger and juster meaning, it [property] embraces everything to which a man may attach a value and have a right; and which leaves to everyone else the like advantage.
In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property. In the latter sense, a man has a property in his opinions and the free communication of them. He has a property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person.
In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
James Madison, Property, 1792
James Madison, the chief author of the Constitution, wrote a guide for thinking about rights. In it he explains that the "right to property" is a kind of summary right; in it are contained all the other rights.
Property, Madison says, is not just the material things we own. We do have a right to those things. But we have a right to much else--our opinions, our faith, our ability to practice our faith (by going to church for example). We have a right to use our energy and ability to make a living; a right to use our minds to learn.
Some of the questions about rights are complicated. For example, if we have a right to work, does that mean we have a right to a job? If we have a right to learn, do we also have a right to be taught?
Madison says no. Mr. Jones is not required to hire us, just because we need a job. He may not need our help. He may want to spend his money on something else. He may not have the money at all. Mr. Smith does not have to teach us, just because we want to know. He may have something better to do, like making a living for himself. In a lot of cases, we may not have a right to a good thing. We just have an equal right to try to get it for ourselves.
Along with rights, go obligations. If you want to eat, make yourself productive. If you want to learn, study. If you want someone else to help you, be prepared to pay him, in money or labor, for his trouble. That, the founders thought, is the price of liberty.
Rights: What is the Role of Government?
We can see, then, that we have natural rights. These are not of our own making. No act or law, no wish or will, of any human being, is responsible for them. They are part of us in the same way that our heart or our head is part of us.
In the Declaration, government can be understood entirely in relation to these rights. "To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."
That is the job. The activities of government grow out of that job. Government must secure our rights against both foreign and domestic threats.
To secure our rights against foreign enemies, government undertakes to defend the country. Governments raise armies, and undertake foreign relations, because they have the job of "providing for the common defense."
To secure our rights against internal enemies, we have the civil and the criminal law. Both are meant to prevent, and to gain redress for, injuries to our persons and our property.
The main work of government is then derived directly from the practical job of securing our rights. In that work is found the political conditions necessary to "close the circle of our felicities."
Where does Government get its Power?
Government is serious business. It is powerful. It has a monopoly on force. It makes people do what it says. It takes their property. It confines them in cages. It puts them to death. It commands them to put others to death. What gives it the right to do all of this? Where does it get all this power?
The Declaration of Independence gives an answer to this. The answer it gives is new; it changes the whole basis of government from what had been thought and practiced before.
"To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed."
In the Declaration, government gets its power from us. It works for us. It exercises force on our behalf, and in the ways that please us.
We are charge of government, for the reason that underlies everything in the Declaration: equality. Because we are all equal, no one is good enough to control the force of government over another, without that other's consent. Equal rights requires consent of the governed.
Was this a Radical Idea?
What must King George III have thought, when he sat down to read the Declaration of Independence? He was born into a royal family. He had succeeded to the throne of England because of that fact. At his coronation, many reasons had been mentioned to justify his assumption of the greatest title in the land. One reason was not mentioned: no one said that he got the job because the people had chosen him to get it.
So he is sitting there on the throne, and everyone bows to him. And then he gets the Declaration of Independence from a bunch of his subjects living off in the wilds of America (where he has spent a lot of money fighting wars). And there it is, written right down in the boldest way: "to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...."
Why Consent?
To "consent" is to give your approval, to agree. According to the Declaration, you have the right to give your consent to the government under which you are to live. This follows from the logic of equality
See how this works. When we form a government, we give it a lot of power. It can put us in prison, in which case we lose our liberty. It can send us to war, in which case we might lose our life. It can take our money in taxes, in which case we lose some or all of our property. Government exists to protect these rights. But in order to protect them, it must have some power to deprive some people of them, in some circumstances. Government is a serious business.
These rights belong to us, and they belong to us equally. They are said to be "unalienable," meaning we cannot give them away. But wait: have we not just said that we give them away to government?
The answer is no, we do not give them away. We simply let government exercise the power to protect our rights, so long as we do not take it back. So long, that is, as we continue to give our consent.
Can We Withdraw our Consent?
The people in the colonies believed that the government in England was ruling them "despotically," that is, as a tyrant or a despot would rule. It was oppressing them. It was violating their rights.
Because of this, they had the right to withdraw their consent. This was not a right they had because some Parliament, in England or somewhere else, had passed a law giving it to them. This was a natural right, a right they held under the "laws of nature and of nature's God." This was the "right of revolution."
What is the "The Right of Revolution?"
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes...
- The "right of revolution" is a fundamental right. It is the foundation of consent of the governed. It is the guarantee that you can take matters into your own hands if you must.
We say "if you must," because the right of revolution is not easy to exercise. It means that the law stops working, and new law has to be made. It often means war.
The American Revolutionary War lasted more than seven years. The cost in lives and property was high. The suffering and disruption reached civilians as well as soldiers. Families lost their farms or businesses. Soldiers lost their lives, some of them after suffering terrible wounds, others by starvation and disease. Many of the signers of the Declaration were themselves killed, or imprisoned, or deprived of their property. They pledged "their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor." Many of them vindicated that pledge in blood.
Yet, once they were convinced that England intended to "reduce them under absolute despotism," the Founders believed that they had no choice but to exercise their right of revolution. The Declaration says that in those circumstances, a revolution is more than a right. It is a Duty.
The fact that our rights are unalienable means something more, merely than that we are born with them, or that we cannot give them away. It means also that if we fail to defend our rights, we dishonor ourselves. The price of liberty is high. To fail to pay that price is a great wrong.
Must Consent be Active?
How do you give your consent to the government under which you live? Did anyone ever come and ask you if you agreed to be ruled by the government of the United States? Probably not. And yet you do give your consent.
How?
First of all, understand something about government. In the Declaration, something more than equal rights exist by nature. Government does, too. Human beings have equal rights, by nature. But also, they require government to secure those rights. As James Madison writes: "if men were angels, no government would be necessary...". But we are not angels. We cannot secure our rights, without government. The Declaration of Independence talks about abolishing government. It never does so without contemplating the formation of a new government.
That means everyone must live under a government. Because of this, consent does not mean that everyone gets to say, every year and for himself alone, whether a given government will continue.
If you are born under a government, you give your consent by living under its laws and by remaining in the country. You have a right, under the laws of nature, to leave if you do not like it. You have a right, under the laws of nature, to revolt and try to make a new government. If you do neither of those things, you consent.
What is Majority Rule?
The practical necessities of running a government also prescribe how consent is to be given. Government has jobs to do. Laws must be made and enforced. The security of the nation must be assured. People's rights must be defended. All of this requires action, sometimes urgent action. This means it is not possible to get the consent of every person, to every act that the government undertakes.
If the unanimous consent is unavailable, what number is correct? If it is not possible to get 100 percent, then how about 95 percent? 80 percent? 75 percent?
All of these numbers would be unfair. If it requires 80 percent of the people to agree to, say, the election of a president, then any 20 percent of the people have the power to override the wishes of the other 80 percent. But what makes the 20 percent so special. If we are all equal, then the wishes of half of us plus one, should override the wishes of any number fewer than that.
When more than half is sufficient to decide, we have "majority rule." This is the basis and the method of democracy. We cannot proceed by unanimous consent. Once we admit that, we go to a natural alternative policy, majority rule. That is the kind of rule that gives the same, or equal, weight to the opinion of each equal citizen.
Are there Limits on Majority Rule?
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
The will of the majority is not always to be followed. Majority rule is a deduction from the larger principle of equality. But majority rule must not interfere with that other, vital deduction from equality--equal rights. Any action by a majority--or any other group or individual--that violates equal rights is an unjust action.
For that reason it makes sense to have rules to prevent even the majority from doing some things. That is why, in our own Constitution, there is a "Bill of Rights." This Bill of Rights prescribes many things that the government cannot do, even if the majority should wish it. The Constitution has other features that make it necessary to have more than a majority in agreement, before certain things can be done. It takes a vote of 2/3 in both houses of Congress to begin one method of amending the Constitution. After that 3/4 of the state legislatures must ratify the proposed amendment before it becomes part of the Constitution.
Does Equality Lead to Limited Government?
In the Declaration of Independence, government occupies an odd position.
On the one hand, the government headed by King George III and his Parliament are oppressors. They deprive the colonists of their natural rights. They steal. They kidnap, falsely imprison, and enslave. They commit arson. They murder. Against them the fiercest resistance is necessary. To defeat them, one has the duty to risk "his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor."
That is one view of government in the Declaration. There is another.
Government is also the protector of the most precious entitlements we can enjoy here on earth. It is the defender of our natural endowment. It shelters the very attributes of our nature that make us what we are. The very authors of the Declaration of Independence are themselves politicians, that is to say, officers in the government, just like King George III and the members of his Parliament. They regard what they do as a high calling.
Can both these pictures accurately reflect the nature of government? In the founding, they most surely do.
Do Humans Need Government?
In the understanding of government in the Declaration of Independence and the American Founding, government has both these attributes. They can be summarized:
- Government is necessary to the attainment and protection of all that we hold dear. Without it we cannot preserve our liberty or property or life. Without it we cannot pursue happiness, which is the purpose of life.
- Government is dangerous. It has the power to coerce. It can imprison or kill. It can take the whole of one's property.
- Government is an activity undertaken by human beings. If their excellences make government possible, their failings make it necessary.
The excellence of human beings elevates them above all other creatures. Human beings can reason and choose. They live in a world demanding moral choices of them constantly, and they have the nobility of soul to be responsible for how they make those choices. It is good to be a good dog. It is better to be a good man, for the man is responsible for what he does in a different way than a dog can be. And human beings pursue the good best, and naturally, together.
Yet human beings have defects that are not less part of their nature than their excellences. They are affected by passions. Their reason is imperfect, given to error, and influenced by the demands of their bodies and their passions. They harm one another. They violate each other's rights.
Government presents then a dilemma. We must have it. How can we trust it?
Is Limited Government the Answer?
For the Founders, the solution to the dilemma of government is "limited government." Limited government derives its powers "from the consent of the governed." The sovereign is finally the people themselves. No King, no High Priest, is entitled to rule by some authority outside those who live under the government.
Unlike all previous forms of government, limited government cannot do anything it wants. The government, and the people, can act only within the bounds of what is right and just.
What Can Government Do?
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. . . . May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.
George Washington, Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport, August 17, 1790
For most of history, rulers have claimed the authority of God for their actions. King George III held the title "Defender of the Faith." His ancestors had put people to death for failing to agree with their King upon some point of religious doctrine. People were forbidden to vote or to hold office or property unless they were members of the established church.
In the Declaration of Independence, government leaves such matters to us. It cannot tell us where to go to church. It cannot tell us, within the bounds of decency, what books to read, what arguments to make, what party to join, what friends to make.
These are matters of conscience, or matters of taste. They are within our right, to decide for ourselves. The Declaration does, indeed, explain the basis of public morality and duty. That ground is "the laws of nature and of nature's God."
The Father of our country, George Washington, was probably the first head of a country to write to a group of Jews as if they were equal citizens with non-Jews. In that letter he explains that government does not dictate religion or other matters of conscience.
But it does expect all "who live under its protection" "to conduct themselves as good citizens." This standard of citizenship refers to the moral law, shared by reason and revealed religion, that makes good citizenship and liberty possible.
Does The Arrangement of Governing Institutions Matter?
But it is the reason of the public alone that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government.
James Madison, Federalist 49, 1788
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.James Madison, Federalist 51, 1788
Our government is carefully designed to prevent too much to accumulate in the hands of anyone. The powers of government are divided among three branches of government and two levels of government. States have some powers, the Federal government others. The president has some powers, the Congress and the Courts others. Each is elected or appointed by different groups of voters, often at different times, often for different terms of office. Power is divided and checked.
Ultimately, all power flows from the majority. But the majority itself never elects anyone, nationwide, to any office. Each member of Congress has a district. Each member of the Senate comes from a certain state. So, too, do governors and members of state legislatures. Even the president is chosen by an Electoral College, which means he must win significant votes in a large number of different states in order to win.
The majority itself, the sovereign voice in the American republic, is itself denied the power to violate the natural or constitutional rights of any person.
Government, in America, is meant to be a limited government. Only a limited government can be trusted to hold the power of coercion.