Rights are not a gift from government!
They flow naturally from our very existence. They are part of our human nature. That’s why the founding generation called them “natural rights.”
And as Thomas Paine explained, we all have them.
Everybody.
“Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants.”
We possess these rights whether the government acknowledges it or not.
The bottom line is that if we need a government permission slip, they aren’t really rights. As Paine wrote, the idea that “a charter gives rights” is a “perversion of terms.”
Sadly, most people today don’t claim their rights as a gift. Instead, they beg government people to respect them, appealing to the Constitution or this or that amendment in the Bill of Rights. Thomas Jefferson would have none of that nonsense.
In Jefferson’s view, it’s foolish to sit back and wait for the government to “give” rights to us. We already have them. We just have to claim and exercise them.
“A free people claim their rights, as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.”
In fact, they should have called the Bill of Rights “The Bill of Restrictions” because it doesn’t give anybody rights. It simply prohibits the government from infringing on rights that we already have by virtue of our humanity.
The thing about restrictions is that they have to be enforced.
Here at the Tenth Amendment Center, we’re committed to protecting our natural rights from the heavy hand of government. We empower and equip people to defend their rights even as the government chips them away day after day. But we can’t do it alone. We need the support of people like you.
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And what are our natural rights?
Samual Adams gave a good summary when outlining the Rights of the Colonists in 1772.
“First, a right to life; secondly to liberty; thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.”
Adams made it clear that if we are to maintain our rights, it’s up to us to defend them.
We’ve got a long, long way to go to get that job done. But with your help, we’re setting the foundation once again.
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