Inalienable Rights
One of the most beautifully crafted sentences composed on American soil is Thomas Jefferson’s second sentence of the birth announcement of a new nation. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
In the Declaration of Independence, these endowments were a very big deal. To call equality and the entitlement of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness “truths” that are “self-evident,”¾in 1776, this was radical.
The language had to sound less than radical, though. There had to be an unquestioning, matter-of-fact authority for the document to both unite his countrymen and impress the Brits. The language had to be deliberate — there could be no wiggle room. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal:” water is wet, ice is cold, steel is hard, marshmallows are soft, these are self-evident truths. In effect, Jefferson is saying that there is no room for argument; there’s nothing to debate.
Before that July 4th day in 1776, these things were not commonly held beliefs, much less self-evident truths. It was being announced to the world that we were not only splitting with England, we were attempting to create a new social order that will be very different from previous ones. For this social order to work, we’ll have to change some of the social norms. These are the items we must hold true.
Nor did Jefferson write “God given rights.” Instead, he crafted, “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” The title “God” was linked with specific religious beliefs. “Creator” had no such links; it referred to a much more generic, less proprietary God.
These “Rights” were “unalienable.” That meant then, and “inalienable” means now, that it can’t be transferred, surrendered, sold, seized or taken. No ifs, ands or buts. Again, no wiggle room.
These Rights were enormous and broadly sweeping:
LIFE — it can’t be argued that to have life a man (person) must have air to breathe, water, food, clothing and shelter. That air and water must have a certain purity as not to poison the life from us. Ditto the food. Clothing and shelter must sufficiently protect us from the elements. Most humans require healthcare to hold on to this unalienable right to life.
LIBERTY and THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS: libraries and Google are filled with volumes discussing these simple but sometimes contradictory basic rights, enough here to say, that without the right to life, neither of these is relevant.
And yes, Jefferson, the slave owner, wrote that “all men are created equal.” And yes, when the Constitution was written and ratified a dozen years after the Declaration, the founders hesitated, debated, sulked, argued and finally did included some wiggle room.
The Constitution originally endowed only white men with those unalienable rights. It took until 1870 before men could not be excluded due to “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Finally, in 1919 women, too, were recognized as being worthy of the Creator’s inalienable rights.
Legal scholars and historians will debate forever Jefferson’s intent, and re-argue the Constitutional Convention’s concessions to the bedrock Declaration.
Despite the rocky road, we Americans are blessed to live in a country whose foundation lies upon that one, finely crafted, deliberate, paradoxically simple and complex statement of human values, in one complex sentence.
No, Democracy ain’t easy; which is why the world laughed at and scorned America’s self-governing experiment. Umair Haque, economist, sociologist, philosopher, business person and survivor of an extremely rare cancer summed it up: “Democracy, in the end, is a difficult, costly human endeavour. We must be free enough to pay its cost — which means having the time and energy and education and care to self-govern. Then and only then can we be citizens. Otherwise, we remain mere subjects.”
