Samuel Adams: The Rights of Colonists (and Colonists as Christians)

Atheists declare that America is not a Christian nation.  They’ll state that many of our founders were deist.  True, some were.  But the vast majority was Christians.  To deny this is to rewrite history.   Samuel Adams is considered the Father of the American Revolution.  He was a devout Christian.  Here is his The Rights of the Colonist:

I. Natural Rights of the Colonists as Men.

Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.

All men have a right to remain in a state of nature as long as they please; and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another.

When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent; and they have a right to demand and insist upon the performance of such conditions and previous limitations as form an equitable original compact.

Every natural right not expressly given up, or, from the nature of a social compact, necessarily ceded, remains.

All positive and civil laws should conform, as far as possible, to the law of natural reason and equity.

As neither reason requires nor religion permits the contrary, every man living in or out of a state of civil society has a right peaceably and quietly to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.

"Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty," in matters spiritual and temporal, is a thing that all men are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature, [Page 418] as well as by the law of nations and all well-grounded municipal laws, which must have their foundation in the former.

In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practised, and, both by precept and example, inculcated on mankind. And it is now generally agreed among Christians that this spirit of toleration, in the fullest extent consistent with the being of civil society, is the chief characteristical mark of the Church. Insomuch that Mr. Locke has asserted and proved, beyond the possibility of contradiction on any solid ground, that such toleration ought to be extended to all whose doctrines are not subversive of society. The only sects which he thinks ought to be, and which by all wise laws are excluded from such toleration, are those who teach doctrines subversive of the civil government under which they live. The Roman Catholics or Papists are excluded by reason of such doctrines as these, that princes excommunicated may be deposed, and those that they call heretics may be destroyed without mercy; besides their recognizing the Pope in so absolute a manner, in subversion of government, by introducing, as far as possible into the states under whose protection they enjoy life, liberty, and property, that solecism in politics, imperium in imperio, leading directly to the worst anarchy and confusion, civil discord, war, and bloodshed.

The natural liberty of man, by entering into society, is abridged or restrained, so far only as is necessary for the great end of society, the best good of the whole.

In the state of nature every man is, under God, judge and sole judge of his own rights and of the injuries done him. By entering into society he agrees to an arbiter or indifferent judge between him and his neighbors; but he no more renounces his original right than by taking a cause out of the ordinary course of law, and leaving the decision to referees or indifferent arbitrators.

In the last case, he must pay the referees for time and trouble. He should also be willing to pay his just quota for the support of government, the law, and the constitution; the end of which is to furnish indifferent and impartial judges in all cases that may happen, whether civil, ecclesiastical, marine, or military.

[Page 419] The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.

In the state of nature men may, as the patriarchs did, employ hired servants for the defence of their lives, liberties, and property; and they should pay them reasonable wages. Government was instituted for the purposes of common defence, and those who hold the reins of government have an equitable, natural right to an honorable support from the same principle that " the laborer is worthy of his hire." But then the same community which they serve ought to be the assessors of their pay. Governors have no right to seek and take what they please; by this, instead of being content with the station assigned them, that of honorable servants of the society, they would soon become absolute masters, despots, and tyrants. Hence, as a private man has a right to say what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a community to determine what they will give and grant of their substance for the administration of public affairs. And, in both cases, more are ready to offer their service at the proposed and stipulated price than are able and willing to perform their duty.

In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

II. The Rights of the Colonists as Christians.

These may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.

[Page 420] By the act of the British Parliament, commonly called the Toleration Act, every subject in England, except Papists, &c., was restored to, and re-established in, his natural right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. And, by the charter of this Province, it is granted, ordained, and established (that is, declared as an original right) that there shall be liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all Christians, except Papists, inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be resident within, such Province or Territory. Magna Charta itself is in substance but a constrained declaration or proclamation and promulgation in the name of the King, Lords, and Commons, of the sense the latter had of their original, inherent, indefeasible natural rights, as also those of free citizens equally perdurable with the other. That great author, that great jurist, and even that court writer, Mr. Justice Blackstone, holds that this recognition was justly obtained of King John, sword in hand. And peradventure it must be one day, sword in hand, again rescued and preserved from total destruction and oblivion.

III. The Rights of the Colonists as Subjects.

A commonwealth or state is a body politic, or civil society of men, united together to promote their mutual safety and prosperity by means of their union.

The absolute rights of Englishmen and all freemen, in or out of civil society, are principally personal security, personal liberty, and private property.

All persons born in the British American Colonies are, by the laws of God and nature and by the common law of England, exclusive of all charters from the Crown, well entitled, and by acts of the British Parliament are declared to be entitled, to all the natural, essential, inherent, and inseparable rights, liberties, and privileges of subjects born in Great Britain or within the realm. Among those rights are the following, which no man, or body of men, consistently with their own rights as men and citizens, or members of society, can for themselves give up or take away from others.

[Page 421] First, "The first fundamental, positive law of all common wealths or states is the establishing the legislative power. As the first fundamental natural law, also, which is to govern even the legislative power itself, is the preservation of the society."

Secondly, The Legislative has no right to absolute, arbitrary power over the lives and fortunes of the people; nor can mortals assume a prerogative not only too high for men, but for angels, and therefore reserved for the exercise of the Deity alone.

"The Legislative cannot justly assume to itself a power to rule by extempore arbitrary decrees; but it is bound to see that justice is dispensed, and that the rights of the subjects be decided by promulgated, standing, and known laws, and authorized independent judges"; that is, independent, as far as possible, of Prince and people. "There should be one rule of justice for rich and poor, for the favorite at court, and the countryman at the plough."

Thirdly, The supreme power cannot justly take from any man any part of his property, without his consent in person or by his representative.

These are some of the first principles of natural law and justice, and the great barriers of all free states and of the British Constitution in particular. It is utterly irreconcilable to these principles and to many other fundamental maxims of the common law, common sense, and reason that a British House of Commons should have a right at pleasure to give and grant the property of the Colonists. (That the Colonists are well entitled to all the essential rights, liberties, and privileges of men and freemen born in Britain is manifest not only from the Colony charters in general, but acts of the British Parliament.) The statute of the 13th of Geo. 2, C. 7, naturalizes even foreigners after seven years' residence. The words of the Massachusetts charter are these: "And further, our will and pleasure is, and we do hereby for us, our heirs, and successors, grant, establish, and ordain, that all and every of the subjects of us, our heirs, and successors, which shall go to, and inhabit within our said Province or Territory, and every of their children, which shall happen to be born there or on the seas in going thither or returning from thence, shall have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects within any of the dominions [Page 422] of us, our heirs, and successors, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever as if they and every one of them were born within this our realm of England."

Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away without consent? Can it be said with any color of truth and justice, that this continent of three thousand miles in length, and of a breadth as yet unexplored, in which, however, it is supposed there are five millions of people, has the least voice, vote, or influence in the British Parliament? Have they all together any more weight or power to return a single member to that House of Commons who have not inadvertently, but deliberately, assumed a power to dispose of their lives, liberties, and properties, than to choose an Emperor of China? Had the Colonists a right to return members to the British Parliament, it would only be hurtful; as, from their local situation and circumstances, it is impossible they should ever be truly and properly represented there. The inhabitants of this country, in all probability, in a few years, will be more numerous than those of Great Britain and Ireland together; yet it is absurdly expected by the promoters of the present measures that these, with their posterity to all generations, should be easy, while their property shall be disposed of by a House of Commons at three thousand miles' distance from them, and who cannot be supposed to have the least care or concern for their real interest; who have not only no natural care for their interest, but must be in effect bribed against it, as every burden they lay on the Colonists is so much saved or gained to themselves. Hitherto, many of the Colonists have been free from quit rents; but if the breath of a British House of Commons can originate an act for taking away all our money, our lands will go next, or be subject to rack rents from haughty and relentless landlords, who will ride at ease, while we are trodden in the dirt. The Colonists have been branded with the odious names of traitors and rebels only for complaining of their grievances. How long such treatment will or ought to be borne, is submitted.

Source: http://history.hanover.edu/texts/adamss.html

Guess What? Homeowner Had a Gun

H/T:  Weasel Zippers

N.C. Law Enforcement Official Proclaims, 'No Right is Absolute.'

NC Renegade published this video.  This is an amazing admission by a "law enforcement" official.  What this man said, was basically there is no such thing as Natural Law.  The Second Amendment exist only as long as our betters deem it appropriate.  Man's law trumps God's law and that no Right is absolute.


All North Carolinians should be concerned with this kind of totalitarian attitude.

The Progressives "Long March" to Positive Law

It has become painfully obvious to me, that Conservatives are not prepared to meet our ideological foes head on in the field of ideas.  Sure, we have a few warriors out in the field – talk radio and the blogosphere, but our political leaders aren’t up to the task.  The Progressives liken themselves to Mao.  They’re on the “long march” to positive law.

The Statist goal is to obliterate our Constitution.  They’ve been whittling away at it for over a century.  Now, they’re smelling victory.  Their chance has come and they’re going to take it.  

Marxist professors and newspaper editors have called for an outright repeal of the Constitution.  Our politicians dismiss it completely.  President Barack Obama implements laws by circumventing Congress.  The Senate originates spending bills, when the Constitution specifically mandates that responsibility to the House.  And now, the Democrats are encouraging the president to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling by implementing the 14^th Amendment, when it’s quite obvious that the clause referenced was to be used only for Civil War debt, not by irresponsible politicians a century and a half later.

And now they’re coming after our rights.  The Democrats are using tragedy and passions to capitalize on the fears of others.  The goal of the statist is to disarm the citizenry, and from there they can inflict their “positive law” without fear of rebellion.

   

[W]e have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. . . . Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. – John Adams

Our founding was revolutionary, not just in war, but ideas.  The belief in individualism and self-government is pervasive in their writings and deeds.  Natural Rights and Natural Law are paramount; positive law shunned and despised.  Here are a couple of excerpts from Murray Rothbard’s Introduction to Natural Law:

    

It was, in contrast, the Levellers and particularly John Locke in seventeenth-century England who transformed classical natural law into a theory grounded on methodological and hence political individualism. From the Lockean emphasis on the individual as the unit of action, as the entity who thinks, feels, chooses, and acts, stemmed his conception of natural law in politics as establishing the natural rights of each individual. It was the Lockean individualist tradition that profoundly influenced the later American revolutionaries and the dominant tradition of libertarian political thought in the revolutionary new nation. It is this tradition of natural-rights libertarianism upon which the present volume attempts to build.

 If, as we have seen, natural law is essentially a revolutionary theory, then so a fortiori is its individualist, natural-rights branch. As the nineteenth-century American natural-rights theorist Elisha P. Hurlbut put it:

 The laws shall be merely declaratory of natural rights and natural wrongs, and … whatever is indifferent to the laws of nature shall be left unnoticed by human legislation … and legal tyranny arises whenever there is a departure from this simple principle.[50]

A notable example of the revolutionary use of natural rights is, of course, the American Revolution, which was grounded in a radically revolutionary development of Lockean theory during the eighteenth century.[51] The famous words of the Declaration of Independence, as Jefferson himself made clear, were enunciating nothing new, but were simply a brilliantly written distillation of the views held by the Americans of the day:

 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 [the more common triad at the lime was "Life, Liberty and Property"]. 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.

 Particularly striking is the flaming prose of the great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, applying natural-rights theory in a revolutionary way to the question of slavery:

 The right to enjoy liberty is inalienable. … Every man has a right to his own body — to the products of his own labor — to the protection of law. … That all these laws which are now in force, admitting the right of slavery are, therefore, before God, utterly null and void … and therefore they ought instantly to be abrogated.[52]

 We shall be speaking throughout this work of "rights," in particular the rights of individuals to property in their persons and in material objects. But how do we define "rights"? "Right" has cogently and trenchantly been defined by Professor Sadowsky:

 When we say that one has the right to do certain things we mean this and only this, that it would be immoral for another, alone or in combination, to stop him from doing this by the use of physical force or the threat thereof. We do not mean that any use a man makes of his property within the limits set forth is necessarily a moral use.

 Personal property, responsibility, and morality are an ambiguous concept to Progressives.  To them everything is a shade of gray; colored by positive law.

Source:  http://mises.org/daily/2426

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/opinion/lets-give-up-on-the-constitution.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

http://www.wallbuilders.com/libissuesarticles.asp?id=63

Australia's Cost of Lost Liberty

You can't trust the mainstream media.  I've read many editorials  by these deceivers of how great Australia's gun ban has worked out.  It's all a lie.  Watch the above video and witness the truth.

H/T:  Maggie's Farm

Source:  http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/52186

New York Politician Equates Gun Owners to Child Molesters

 A former NYC mayoral candidate equates gun owners with child molesters. These liberal politicians have no shame. You want to see the face of a tyrant? Look upon Mark Green. He’ll take every damn one of our natural rights away, and make us wards of the state. 

Sen. Chuck E. Schumer Proclaims Your Rights Aren't Sacred

Senator Chuck E. Schumer holds nothing sacred, and that includes your God given rights. This man stood on the senate floor and equated political speech with pornography and yelling fire in a crowded theater.

Mr. Super Genius wants to silence his critics. The only thing absolute with this totalitarian is his power over you and me.

Rep. Paul Ryan Stands Up for Natural Rights

The progressive lie is becoming apparent for all to see. The statists have schemed to take away our “natural rights” and transplant them with “government sanctioned rights.” This war on freedom and self-determination is coming to a head. Finally, we have some politicians speaking out against those who would become our rulers.

During a speech at the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s annual gala on Tuesday, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan said that the presidential election in November will come down to “natural rights” versus “government-granted rights.”

Ryan explained that the American people will either accept the idea of natural rights, which “come to us naturally before government, they are ours automatically, or this new idea — the progressive theory — of government granted rights. That the government now gives us new positive rights. It’s an opportunity society versus welfare state. This is a fight we know pretty well where I come from. It’s a fight that’s coming to a crescendo here. It’s a fight where we actually look at whether we believe in the rule of law or the rule of man.”

“One week,” Ryan added, “it’s the war on women, next week it’s going to be something else, and probably the week after that it’s going to be left-handed Irishmen. I’m not going to fall for it because I’m right-handed.”

Source: http://dailycaller.com/2012/06/08/paul-ryan-nov-election-is-about-natural-rights-vs-government-granted-rights-video/#ixzz1xDWUkR6t

Georgia Judge Rules Children of Foreigners Can Become President

Last week, a Georgia judge ruled in favor of Barack Obama’s “natural born” status based on an Indiana court case Arkney v. Governor. Judge Michael M. Malihi stated this in his decision:

Indiana court rejected the argument that Mr. Obama was ineligible stating that children born within the United States are natural born citizens regardless of the citizens of their parents.

So basically, any foreigner who happens to squat on American soil even though they have no allegiance to this country -- maybe even foster hatred of our institutions and peoples -- their child can become president of the United States. In other words, a terrorist like Anwar al-Awlaki has every right to become commander-in-chief of our armed forces. Isn’t that comforting?

Anwar al-Awlaki’s parents were Yemeni citizens who came to the United States on student visas. Anwar just happened to be born in New Mexico. Does anyone doubt the animosity this man had for his “country?” Does anyone doubt that this man wanted to kill his “fellow countrymen?”

A rogue ruling on the 14th Amendment has set a dangerous precedent and now we have judges forsaking our founding fathers vision of natural law and rights. And because of precedent (stare decisis) we have invited a nest of vipers to conspire and obtain one of the highest offices in the country.

Let’s give a golf clap to the Indiana and Georgia courts for opening the door wider for a future president Anwar al-Awlaki. Their rulings give a whole new meaning to “We are the world. We are the children.”


Source: http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/a/anwar_al_awlaki/index.html

http://constitution.org/col/0610staredrift.htm

http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/judge-says-obama-can-be-on-georgia-ballot/

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B_KEK8-LWmzhNWQ4MmI2ZGUtZDMwYi00ZGU4LTkxZTUtZjNkNjNhOGY2YWQ4&hl=en_US

Britains Warn Americans About Government Confiscation of Handguns

This is what happens when you confer complete trust in a government. They will trounce all over your God given rights. Hopefully, we Americans will uphold a tradition of casting a suspect eye on centralized power.


H/T: NC Renegade

Elena Kagan Doesn't Believe in Founding Principles

The Senate Judiciary Committee passed Elena Kagan on a 13 - 6 vote with one republican voting in the affirmative: Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina. The full Senate is scheduled to vote on her confirmation to the Supreme Court sometime in early August.

Kagan is a progressive who does not believe in natural law or natural rights; this is in direct conflict with the founding principles established in our Declaration of Independence.

The following is reported in WorldNetDaily.com:

The statements by Kagan came in an exchange with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. Farah said most of the press failed to cover her responses, which he deemed as newsworthy as any she made during the hearings:

Coburn: Do you believe it is a fundamental, pre-existing right to have an arm to defend yourself?

Kagan: Senator Coburn, I very much appreciate how deeply important the right to bear arms is to millions and millions of Americans. And I accept Heller, which made clear that the Second Amendment conferred that right upon individuals, and not simply collectively.

Coburn: I'm asking you, Elena Kagan, do you personally believe there is a fundamental right in this area? Do you agree with Blackstone [in] the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defense? He didn't say that was a constitutional right. He said that's a natural right. And what I'm asking you is, do you agree with that?

Kagan: Senator Coburn, to be honest with you, I don't have a view of what are natural rights, independent of the Constitution. And my job as a justice will be to enforce and defend the Constitution and the laws of the United States.

Coburn: So you wouldn't embrace what the Declaration of Independence says, that we have certain God-given, inalienable rights that aren't given in the Constitution that are ours, ours alone, and that a government doesn't give those to us?

Kagan: Senator Coburn, I believe that the Constitution is an extraordinary document, and I'm not saying I do not believe that there are rights pre-existing the Constitution and the laws. But my job as a justice is to enforce the Constitution and the laws.

Coburn: Well, I understand that. I'm not talking about as a justice. I'm talking about Elena Kagan. What do you believe? Are there inalienable rights for us? Do you believe that?

Kagan: Senator Coburn, I think that the question of what I believe as to what people's rights are outside the Constitution and the laws, that you should not want me to act in any way on the basis of such a belief.

Coburn: I would want you to always act on the basis of the belief of what our Declaration of Independence says.

Kagan: I think you should want me to act on the basis of law. And that is what I have upheld to do, if I'm fortunate enough to be confirmed, is to act on the basis of law, which is the Constitution and the statutes of the United States.

Elena Kagan and her fellow progressives do not believe that rights are unalienable. They believe that rights are granted by men; therefore they can be easily taken away. Do we really want people such as she sitting on the Supreme Court? I don't.

Source: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=184317