Do natural rights exist, or are all rights granted by government?

Yes we have natural rights.
The first sentence of the Declaration of Independence says that it is the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God that entitles the U.S. to exist.

The basis for the Declaration of Independence was our right to throw off our previous government. Our right to reclaim government is from a maxim Legibus sumptis desinentibus, lege naturae utendum est. When laws of the state fail, we must resort to the laws of nature.

Some people claim that there is a Social Compact which requires us to submit to government. Some people believe we must forfeit rights and freedoms to have a “civil and orderly” society. Thomas Jefferson was there and he had no such thought.  
The social compact theory of government says we give up some rights when we enter society. Yet twenty-nine years after the Constitution was written, this theory was refuted by Thomas Jefferson when he warned about this emerging dangerous theory.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So…

“Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights.”

Have your neighbors infused into government an authority that “We The People”, who created government, did not ourselves have? Some people believe we must forfeit rights and freedoms to have a “civil and orderly” society.

Thomas Jefferson was there and he never had such a thought:
 • Thomas Jefferson: “the idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights.” – letter to F. W. Gilmer 1816.

• Younger Thomas Jefferson, in 1774, proclaimed that rights do not come from government: “

“These are our grievances, which we have thus laid before his Majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people, claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” — Jefferson, Rights of British America, 1774, page 141

Rights do not come from government.

We are born free, with the rights of all mankind.

We are all created equal. We are endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights.

  • Equals have no duty to obey other equals. Equals would not salute other equals. Equals will not consent to be governed.

Governments are instituted among men to secure Creator-endowed unalienable rights. Government is an artificial entity created on paper by “equals”. The “equals” are responsible for controlling what they create.

  • If we are all equal, then where will equals find subordinates that can be controlled? Their artificial entity cannot be run by equals (who have no duty to obey other equals); it can only be run by subordinates.

One becomes subordinate by swearing an oath-of-office* – thereby agreeing to faithfully serve the artificial entity created by superiors. Their superiors will only govern their subordinates by the consent of the governed subordinates. Oaths are only taken by subordinates (in the Bible ever since Abraham swore an oath to King Abimelech to settle a dispute, and Hebrews 6:16, etc.)

Nature’s God is mentioned in the first sentence of the Declaration. You had a right to your God-given free will — until you voluntarily waived your rights.

Rights only come with responsibilities. There is a reason that you do not have rights.

Government now encourages us to be irresponsible. The same government that once required us to be responsible.

People are tricked out of their rights by legalities they did not understand.

The civil laws reduce an ungrateful freeman to slavery. The maxim is found in every law dictionary:

“The civil laws reduce an ungrateful freedman to his original slavery” Libertinum ingratum leges civiles in pristinam servitutem redigunt.

You lost your rights when you voluntarily confessed, on a permanent irrevocable federal document, that you are an ungrateful socialist who cannot manage your own life. In order to do this, you had to deny that we are created equal, you had to covet your neighbors’ wealth, you had to worship grave images, you had to change your citizenship, and you had to bow down to a graven master/provider/protector/lord. And you agreed to swear oaths (contrary to Matthew 5:34 and James 5:12).

* (even though contrary to moral principles)

You voluntarily consented to be governed

Texas Supreme Court In Dallas v. Mitchell, 245 SW 944:

“The rights of the individual are not derived from governmental agencies, … or even from the Constitution, but they exist inherently in every man, and are merely reaffirmed in the Constitution and restricted only to the extent they have been voluntarily surrendered by the citizenship to the agencies of government.”

Back in 1798, the people living in Kentucky wanted assurance that they were free from federal law. They knew they were free from most federal laws but they remained skeptical. Vice President Thomas Jefferson reassured them in the Kentucky Resolves that State Citizens are subject to only three federal laws. Vice President Jefferson wrote both Kentucky Resolutions.

“Resolved, that the Constitution of the United States having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies and felonies committed on the High Seas, and offenses against the laws of nations, and no other crimes, whatsoever, and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, “that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people, . . . “

As a State Citizen, YOU WERE FREE FROM FEDERAL JURISDICTION, until you surrendered. When you volunteer into the federal government, you voluntarily submit yourself to a form of government that owes allegiance to two sovereignties. You voluntarily deny that we are created equal.

The U.S. Supreme Court in the Cruikshank case, 92 US at 551:

“It is the natural consequence of a citizenship which owes allegiance to two sovereignties, and claims protection from both. The citizen cannot complain, because he has voluntarily submitted himself to such a form of government.”

Your natural birth did NOT voluntarily submit yourself to the federal government. You voluntarily entered the federal government when you signed a federal form. You also have to be “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof”. See Elk v. Wilkins* for the extent to which you must be subject. (“not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to…“)

We are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights. That to secure those rights governments are instituted among men. The social compact theory of government says we give up some rights when we enter society. Yet twenty-nine years after the Constitution was written, this theory was refuted by Thomas Jefferson when he warned about this emerging dangerous theory.

*The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the meaning of the first sentence of the 14th Amendment in Elk v. Wilkins in 1884 (112 U.S. 94,): The persons declared to be are `all persons born or naturalized in the united states, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof.’ The evident meaning of these last words is, not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiance.”

What did you sign that waived your rights by legalities that you did not understand?

The three rights of all mankind.

What were your rights under the original understanding of the U.S. Constitution?

The Declaration of Independence defines government secured Rights in one long sentence:

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

The ONLY rights mentioned in The Declaration of Independence are unalienable Creator-granted rights. They are God-given. They are not granted by government. There is NO mention of civil rights. Your God-given rights are to be secured by government — which is the ONLY stated reason that governments are instituted among men.

I will now prove that in the United States “the rights of all mankind” are the rights that government was instituted among men to secure.

The purpose of government was to protect your God-given free will from all known methods of compulsion.

Here is the proof.

The common law in colonial America had three human rights (called “the rights of all mankind” and also called “the residuum of natural liberty” — quoted below) that could never be surrendered to government: The right to personal liberty, the right to self-defense, and the right to own private property. The English common law considered these to be the residual of natural liberty which could never be “required by the laws of society to be sacrificed to public convenience … ” The preservation of these rights, inviolate, secured the preservation of civilized society (according to the introduction to the 1769 book Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Law, Book 4 — this linkis to an 1803 revision that includes Virginia law.)

The rights themselves, thus defined by these several statutes, consist in a number of private immunities, which will appear, from what has been premised, to be indeed no other, than either that residuum of natural liberty, which is not required by the laws of society to be sacrificed to public convenience; or else those civil privileges, which society hath engaged to provide, in lieu of the natural liberties so given up by individuals. These, therefore, were formerly, either by inheritance or purchase, the rights of all mankind; but, in most other countries of the world being now more or less debased and destroyed, they at present may be said to remain, in a peculiar and emphatical manner, the rights of the people of England. And these may be reduced to three principal or primary articles; the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and the right of private property: because, as there is no other known method of compulsion, or of abridging man’s natural free will, but by an infringement or diminution of one or other of these important rights, the preservation of these, inviolate, may justly be said to include the preservation of our civil immunities in their largest and most extensive sense. “

That was the understanding of American rights under the U. S. Constitution in 1803 Virginia.
 If your God-given (Creator-endowed was the terminology used in 1776) are now subject to government compulsion, there must be a reason.

What did you sign that ensnared yourself to legalities that you did not understand?

Civil Law in the U.S.

Every law dictionary will tell you “The civil laws reduce an ungrateful freedman to his original slavery” Libertinum ingratum leges civiles in pristinam servitutem redigunt. Before you can understand that you voluntered into slavery, you must understand the purpose of government benefits that are offered to those who confess they need government assistance.

So just what is this Civil Law that reduced us to our slavery?

It is the same Roman Law that executed Christ.

Black’s Law Dictionary definition of Constitutor:

Black’s Law Dictionary definition of Constitutor

Ben Franklin’s 18 million Livra Revolutionary War debtwas due January 1, 1788, and we could not pay it. So your “founding fathers” held a Constitutional Convention to transfer the debt to you. The Constitution was ratified by Three-Fourths of the States.

The Constitutional Convention was constituted under the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation require a unanimous passage of any agreement between States. No group of States can gang-up and speak for remaining States. How did 3/4 get the authority to speak for the remaining States?

The 18 Million Livra debt has not been paid yet, thanks to principalities and powers in high places. So keep paying.

EQUITY

Equity is defined today as “the quality of being fair or impartial; fairness; impartiality”

In the law it has been “called chancery. A system of jurisprudence or a body of doctrines and rules developed in England and followed in the U.S., serving to supplement and remedy the limitations and the inflexibility of the common law. ”

According to Webster’s 1913 Unabridged Dictionary: [unstated: By the year 1873 …]

“when rules of equity and of common law, in any particular case, conflict, the rules of equity are to prevail”.

And the Encyclopedia Britannica of 1911 (11th edition, Vol IX, page 727) stated of equity jurisdiction:

“The evils of this double system of judicature…were enforced by the Act of 1873 which consolidated the courts of law and equity, and ordered that law and equity should be administered concurrently.”

That’s right! The Encyclopedia Britannica called your judicial system evil. You should recognize evil when you see it.

William Blackstone’s 1765 Commentaries on the Law are considered by the Supreme Court to be part of the received-law-of-the-land. In the introduction to this 4 volume law textbooks there is a summary of the law that is derived from the laws of nature:

“… no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this: and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.. … Neither could any other law possibly exist; … for we are all equal, without any other superior but him who is the author of our being.”

AUTHORITY IS ALWAYS WHERE IT BEGAN, WITH THE AUTHOR

Martin Luther’s Secular Authority: To What Extent It Should be Obeyed, was published in 1523. Samuel Rutherford published Lex Rex in 1644. We executed King Charles I in 1649. The divine right of Kings to rule was completely refuted in 1688 by John Locke’s First Treatise of Government.

Law is King (Lex Rex) refers to divine law, not to tyranny. “Where-ever law ends, tyranny begins

The divine laws of nature and of nature’s God are mentioned in the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence as the authority that entitles the United States to exist.

It was recognized in Protestant cultures that all sovereign authority is vested in the people. Supreme power – jura summi imperii – resides in the people. They can create their government to protect their unalienable God-given rights. They can write whatever law and delegate whatever authority is needed to control the government they create. Or alter their form of Government. The Declaration of Independence says “it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such Government”

This principle was valid when Wycliffe wrote the introduction to his English Bible translation. He said that the Bible creates a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Lincoln became famous for quoting it.

This principle was our right since the beginning. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #28:

“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, … if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, … The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.”

Does that sound like Hamilton expected us to blindly obey government powers because they are somehow ordained of God to be higher powers?

The law of nature requires us to supervise our civil servants, and if they fail to enforce the divine law of nature, we are restored to the nature that we were in prior to creating government, for we are all equal. See Locke’s Second Treatise paragraphs 135, 149, 171, 209. . Legibus sumptis desinentibus, lege naturae utendum est. When laws of the state fail, we must resort to the laws of nature.

This principle was still valid when Abraham Lincoln made his First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861:

“This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.”

Does that sound like Lincoln expected us to obey government powers ? Did Lincoln’s words go over your head?

If you don’t understand why a president would speak of overthrowing government then you don’t understand authority. Abe knew where his authority came from. We The People are the jura summi imperii that created a limited government (limited to the 18 things we delegated to them). The posterity of We The People are responsible for controlling the creature we created.