The origin of the Bill of Rights?

El_Guero · Aug 5, 2006

mmm ...

Natural rights are those rights which we are supposed to have as human beings before ever government comes into being. We might suppose, that like other animals, we have a natural right to struggle for our survival. Locke will argue that we have a right to the means to survive. When Locke comes to explain how government comes into being, he uses the idea that people agree that their condition in the state of nature is unsatisfactory, and so agree to transfer some of their rights to a central government, while retaining others. This is the theory of the social contract. There are many versions of natural rights theory and the social contract in seventeenth and eighteenth century European political philosophy, some conservative and some radical. Locke's version belongs on the radical side of the spectrum. These radical natural right theories influenced the ideologies of the American and French revolutions.
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http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/

El_Guero · Aug 5, 2006

or ....

Nearly one hundred years before the Framers met in Philadelphia to write the United States Constitution,the English philosopher John Locke published the Second Treatise of Civil Government. Locke's immediate purpose was to justify the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and to deny the claims of absolute monarchy based on divine right. The result of this Revolution, of course, was the establishment of the doctrine of Parliamentary supremacy in England. Locke held that the inalienable rights of individuals form the basis of all rightful governments. According to him, individuals possess these rights simply by virtue of their humanity. They antedate the existence of any government. The authority exercised by governments is exercised on the basis of the consent of the governed and they consent to the exercise of that authority in order to acquire security for their natural rights to life, liberty and estate.
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http://www.civiced.org/political.html

El_Guero · Aug 5, 2006

AND, if I may add to your fine post - America was not Europe. Most Americans had come here to escape the oppression, get rich, or were sold here as servants (it is a shame that true slavery became common after the Revolution).

So, many Americans did not have the cultural chains to free themselves of - like the French that failed miserably at their Revolution.

The Galatian said:

It was over ideas. A revolutionary economic idea, and a revolutionary political idea. It just happened in America because of the particular social and political situations there.

To a large degree, the colonies had already implemented most of the ideas of the enlightenment, and had come to resent the British for imposing on them in any way.

One could argue that the Glorious Revolution provided the definitive statement of the "rights of Englishmen", but when the Americans appealed to Parlaiment about these rights, they were laughed at. Rather, the Americans came to accept that there were natural rights that did not come from men and documents, but rather belonging to them as creatures of God.
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The Galatian · Aug 5, 2006

The American Revolution was not like the French Revolution. The French Revolution was hijacked by a pack of theoreticians, who set out to create the perfect society.

The American Revolution was conducted by pragmatists who were seeking to preserve the society they had. They didn't believe in a perfectable society, only in a society that might be constructed as to avoid tyranny. As I said, they had in many ways implemented the ideas of the enlightenment. All they wanted was to be left alone to enjoy them. The Ancien Régime was in the minds of the Americans, not their government, but a foreign oppressor.

El_Guero · Aug 5, 2006

Galatian

Another great post!

Our Forefathers were nothing like the French. The chains kept them down. I also believe these chains (hijacking elitists) kept mexico from succeeding. IMHO.

The Galatian said:

The American Revolution was not like the French Revolution. The French Revolution was hijacked by a pack of theoreticians, who set out to create the perfect society.

The American Revolution was conducted by pragmatists who were seeking to preserve the society they had. They didn't believe in a perfectable society, only in a society that might be constructed as to avoid tyranny. As I said, they had in many ways implemented the ideas of the enlightenment. All they wanted was to be left alone to enjoy them. The Ancien Régime was in the minds of the Americans, not their government, but a foreign oppressor.
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The origin of the Bill of Rights?

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