By
Thomas Jefferson (paragraph by paragraph)
Collected
and arranged by Karl Born, December 15, 2011
That from that equal creation they
derive in rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the
preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness;
That to secure these ends, governments
are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent
of the governed;
That whenever any form of government
shall becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the
people to alter or abolish it, & to institute new government,
laying its foundation on such principles, & organizing its powers
in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
safety & happiness.
Prudence,
indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be
changed for light & transient causes; and, accordingly, all
experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while
evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the
forms to which they are accustomed; but when a long train of abuses &
usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to
subject them to arbitrary power, it is their right, it is their duty,
to throw off such government, & to provide new guards for their
future security.
We
consider society as one of the natural wants with which man has been
created;
That
he has been endowed with faculties and qualities to effect its
satisfaction by concurrence of others having the same want;
That
when, by the exercise of these faculties, he
has procured a state of society, it is one of his acquisitions which
he has a right to regulate and control, jointly indeed with all those
who have concurred in the procurement, whom he cannot exclude from
its use or direction more than they him. …
That
morality, compassion, generosity, are innate elements of the human
constitution;
That
there exists a right independent of force;
That
a right to property is founded in our natural wants, in the means
with which we are endowed to satisfy these wants, and the right to
what we acquire by those means without violating the similar rights
of other sensible beings;
That
no one has a right to obstruct another, exercising his faculties
innocently for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature;
That
justice is the fundamental law of society;
That
the majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses
its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the
foundations of society; [and]
That
action by the citizens in person, in affairs within their reach and
competence, and in all others by representatives, chosen immediately,
and removable by themselves, constitutes the essence of a republic.
No
man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of
another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him:
every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the
necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce
on him: and, no man having a natural right to be the judge between
himself and another, it is his natural duty to submit to the umpirage
of an impartial third. When the laws have declared and enforced all
this, they have fulfilled their functions, and the idea is quite
unfounded, that on entering into society we give up any natural
right.
If
we are made in some degree for others, yet in a greater, are we made
for ourselves. It were contrary to feeling and, indeed, ridiculous to
suppose that a man had less right in himself than one of his
neighbors, or indeed, all of them put together. This would be
slavery, and not that liberty which the bill of rights has made
inviolable, and for the preservation of which our government has been
charged. Nothing could so completely divest us of that liberty as the
establishment of the opinion, that the State has a perpetual right to
the services of all its members. This, to men of certain ways of
thinking, would be to annihilate the blessing of existence, and to
contradict the Giver of life, who gave it for happiness and not for
wretchedness. And certainly, to such it were better that they had
never been born.
The
God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of
force may destroy, but
cannot disjoin them.