We throw
to the winds the old dogma that governments can give rights. Before
governments were organized, no one denies that each individual possessed
the right to protect his own life, liberty and property. And when 100 or
1,000,000 people enter into a free government, they do not barter away
their natural rights; they simply pledge themselves to protect each
other in the enjoyment of them, through prescribed judicial and
legislative tribunals. They agree to abandon the methods of brute force
in the adjustment of their differences, and adopt those of civilization.
Nor can you find a word in any of the grand documents left us by the
fathers that assumes for government the power to create or to confer
rights. The Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution,
the constitutions of the several states and the organic laws of the
territories, all alike propose to protect the people in the exercise of
their God-given rights. Not one of them pretends to bestow rights.
"All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness. That to secure these, governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
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