On April 13th every American should raise a Champagne glass to toast the farmer, architect, scholar, revolutionary, and American president born that spring day in 1743: Thomas Jefferson. One of our greatest Founding Fathers, Jefferson carved much of the government and character of his precious gem, America.
He penned numerous
documents extolling the revolutionary ideas of his time, including the stirring
words on the parchment that created the new nation of America, “The Declaration
of Independence.” Yet how many of our current citizens—and elected
officials—truly understand its meaning? This is why it’s necessary to explain
its great principles of individual rights and limited government.
The Declaration launched
the first country in history based on the principle that every individual
possesses certain “unalienable” rights. According to Jefferson's writings,
“free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as
the gift of their Chief Magistrate.” No tyrant has the authority to violate the
rights of man, nor does any majority in Congress. “...the majority, oppressing
an individual,” says Jefferson, “is guilty of a crime . . . and by acting on
the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.”
Our rights belong to us as
individuals, with each of us possessing the same rights. There are no “rights”
of groups to any special favors or privileges. It is inappropriate, for
example, for pizza eaters to lobby Congress for a “right” to a free pizza every
Thursday. If Congress grants their wish, out of concern for their nourishment
or their votes, it acts outside of its proper function. According to Jefferson,
“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only
those specifically enumerated [in the Constitution].”
Our rights to life,
liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness are rights to take action;
they are not entitlements to the goods and services of others. Jefferson
defined liberty as “unobstructed action according to our will within limits
drawn around us by the equal rights of others.” This means we may act in
our own behalf, for example, to earn money and buy a house, but we may not
expect the government to tax others to provide us with a house for free.
Life requires productive
work and effort to sustain it, a fact that Jefferson considered to be our
glory. When his Monticello farm fell on hard times, he began producing nails,
and did so proudly because “every honest employment is deemed honorable [in
America]. . . . My new trade of nail-making is to me in this country what an
additional title of nobility . . . [is] in Europe.” He scorned the “idleness”
of the European aristocracy, calling their courts “the weakest and worst part
of mankind.” What would he think of our current government's grants and
handouts to countless special-interest groups, a practice that rewards people
for non-effort?
Our right to property means
we have the right to keep the things we acquire. Does a rich person have less
of a right to property than a poor person? According to Jefferson: “To take
from one because it is thought his own industry . . . has acquired too much, in
order to spare others who . . . have not exercised equal industry and skill is
to violate the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the
free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.” What would he
think of the persistent cries of today's politicians to “tax the rich,” thereby
depriving them of their property and the pursuit of their happiness?
Jefferson ardently championed the spiritual and
intellectual independence of the individual. He was so proud of authoring the
“Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom” in Virginia that he had this fact
etched on his tombstone. The bill ended the practice of paying the clergy with
public funds because “to compel a man to furnish . . . money for the
propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical.”
Jefferson believed that religion was a completely private matter and fought for a “wall of
separation between church and state.” He was
“against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another”;
and he swore “eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of
man.” What would he think of special interests and politicians of both
parties, past and present—from advocates of Prohibition to faith-based initiatives—who try to dictate
public policy and spend taxpayer money to promote religious objectives? And
what would he think of the current administration's unprecedented power over
religious organizations that provide health insurance, forcing them to offer
benefits that violate their conscience?
Because we possess rights, governments are instituted. Wise government, explains Jefferson, “shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” Government acts only to protect us from acts of force or fraud, apprehending perpetrators who pick our pockets or break our legs; otherwise, it does not regulate or control our lives in any way. Jefferson was “for a government rigorously frugal and simple . . . and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans . . . ” What would he think of the swarms of agencies, bureaus, commissions, and departments that today swallow more than 40-percent of our national income?
Because we possess rights, governments are instituted. Wise government, explains Jefferson, “shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” Government acts only to protect us from acts of force or fraud, apprehending perpetrators who pick our pockets or break our legs; otherwise, it does not regulate or control our lives in any way. Jefferson was “for a government rigorously frugal and simple . . . and not for a multiplication of officers and salaries merely to make partisans . . . ” What would he think of the swarms of agencies, bureaus, commissions, and departments that today swallow more than 40-percent of our national income?
Jefferson believed citizens
to be capable of self-sufficiency because they possess reason. “Fix
reason firmly to her seat and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion.”
He expected people to use their minds to overcome obstacles and control their
own lives. He gently chastised his 15 year-old daughter when she had difficulty
reading an ancient text on Roman history without the aid of her teacher. “If
you always lean on your master, you will never be able to proceed without him.
It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate—to
surmount every difficulty . . . ” Americans, he continued, “are obliged to
invent and to execute; to find the means within ourselves, and not to lean on
others.” To do otherwise, his daughter would be “thought a very helpless
animal, and less esteemed.” What would he think of today's entitlement
programs, which destroy a person's capacity to think and act for himself, and
transform him into a helpless dependent?
Within a mere page in the
calendar of history, the powerful doctrine of individual rights led to the
abolition of slavery, the suffrage of women, and the spread of freedom to many
countries around the globe. It all began with the founding of America.
Jefferson fought for a
country in which the government had no power to encroach on the mind, the life,
the liberty, and the property of the individual. He fought for a country in
which the individual was unshackled for the first time in history and could
live for the pursuit of his own happiness, instead of being a pawn in the hands
of the state. The way to pay tribute to Jefferson—and to ourselves—is to
protest the hammering of our rights by officials who can't tell a diamond from
a rhinestone, to hold dear the jewel that is America, and to polish the ideals
for which Jefferson and the other signers of the Declaration pledged their
lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
________________
This
essay is excerpted from the author’s e-book, The
Pioneer vs. the Welfare State: Essays on Liberty in Peril, available on
Amazon Kindle. Gen LaGreca is also the
author of two novels that celebrate individualism and liberty, Noble
Vision and A
Dream of Daring, available on Amazon.
Copyright
© 2014 by Genevieve LaGreca. Permission to reproduce is given with proper
attribution to the author.
