The Declaration of Independence, which we celebrated on the 4th of July, did more than separate the American colonies from Great Britain. It set forth a political theory, embodied in the new nation, that would become accepted and adopted around the world, though today it is being contested.
The words are engrained in our national consciousness: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are … endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” These inspirational and linguistically beautiful words of the Declaration of Independence justified the American colonies’ break from England. But they did more than that. They explained to the world and to history that natural rights formed the basis of civil law and government. This was the truly revolutionary aspect of that document signed on July 4, 1776.
After the Declaration, the world was never the same. The legacy of natural rights meant that law and government would no longer legitimately flow from the whims of a monarch. Tyrants would no longer carry any moral authority. Human dignity would transcend the interests of the empire. The Declaration and its natural law foundations vaulted the human world into a new orbit of political philosophy, where deprivations of individual dignity could not be convincingly justified by the self-interests of a ruling elite.
The Declaration led to a political and legal system that in turn gave birth to a flourishing of freedom and individual dignity that history had never before witnessed. And as respect for individual dignity grew, social prosperity grew, thereby lighting a beacon of inspiration that would eventually reach the entire world.
Let me explain: If a right is “natural,” that means it inheres in nature. Not in the sense of animals, forests, and mountains–which in that modern usage excludes human beings–but in the sense of being part of objective reality, the order built into creation. As in “human nature” or “the nature of the problem.”
There are natural rights and also legal rights, those granted by the state. The former are “unalienable”; that is, they cannot be taken away, though a tyrannical state might violate them. The latter can be bestowed or taken away by the state.
Thus, a right is a “truth.” Human beings have a natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness because they have been “endowed” with such “by their creator.” They are alive, so they have a right to life. They have agency, so they have a right to liberty. They engage in purposeful activity, so they have a right to the pursuit of happiness. (See this for other natural rights.)
Postmodernists might be environmentalists and only eat “natural foods,” but they reject “nature” in the sense of “human nature,” “natural law,” and “natural rights.” They believe these are individual constructions (as in existentialism, in which there is no “human nature,” only personal decisions) or social constructions (as in critical theory, in which whatever group is in power creates laws and morality to oppress other groups).
So today, it shouldn’t be surprising that “natural rights”–along with the legal rights that embody them and the Declaration of Independence that authoritatively affirms their existence–are now contested.
Says Garry, “Progressives oppose natural rights because they wish to wipe away that very historic and traditional check on the kind of unlimited federal government they seek to implement.”
The progressive left seeks to radically transform America through the tool of an ever-larger central government. And just as the French Revolution did in France, the modern progressive left seeks to wipe away the old so as to import the new of their own design. Progressives view the institutions of civil society as obstacles to a secularized state dominated by a central government.
Garry discusses the progressive left’s demonization of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and the signers of that document. In their mindset, since Jefferson was a slaveholder, this delegitimizes everything he wrote.
After all, as I have said, the postmodernists assume that writings and any institutions they give birth to are impositions of oppressive power. Though the Declaration talks about equality, the author, who denied that principle by his actions, is actually being deceptive, constructing a falsehood so that the unequal people in American society will think they are equal to make them more docile and easier to control by their oppressors.
Garry comments, “The irony behind the attack on Jefferson’s natural rights doctrine is that it inspired and fueled the abolitionist movement of the 19th century that succeeded in wiping out slavery.” Because natural rights are objectively true, regardless of whether or not the person who articulates them lives out his conviction, they can still be applied and the state can be held to account for violating them.
Otherwise, if the state, taking the place of God, is the one who “endows” all rights, there is no authority above or beyond the state and no transcendent moral framework by which it can be criticized.
Illustration: The Declaration of Independence via Picryl, public domain.
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