What's Government For?

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was third president of the U.S. and was author of the Declaration of Independence. A noted scholar, he founded the University of Virginia.

The want or imperfection of the moral sense in some men ... is no proof that it is a general characteristic of the species. When it is wanting, we endeavor to supply the detail by education ... . I sincerely, then, believe ... in the general existence of a moral instinct. I think it the brightest gem with which the human character is studded, and the want of it as more degrading than the most hideous of the bodily deformities.
- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Law, June 13, 1814- in The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson

Is it really "self-evident" that we have God-given rights?

Thomas Jefferson worked out a sound and sensible political philosophy based on ethical principles-. Central to his ethical theory was his view that people have an "ethical instinct." "We hold these truths to be self-evident," he said, "That all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." This concept of natural, God-given rights was borrowed by Jefferson from John Locke, who believed we have God-given rights to life, liberty, and property. Property, Locke said, is something we lay claim to through work. If you put your labor into something, it is yours.

God put His labor into us, in creating us, so we are His property. Any person who tries to usurp our freedom through tyrannical government is stealing from God, trying to become a god over us~ That this is wrong seemed to Locke and Jefferson to be self- evident--that is, plain to our moral instincts. For, as Jefferson said, "to preserve these ends governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." When the government fails to preserve these rights, the people have "a right, nay, a duty" to revolt. Governments today would have us believe that they gave us all the rights we have. People speak of the "consititutional rights" of black people or women. But the government did not give blacks or women the right to vote. God did. And the ERA will not give women the right to equal pay for equal work. God did. The point of a government is not to bestow God-given rights, but to preserve them To anyone with any moral instinct, the right of women to equal pay for equal work is God-given. They already have it. It is the responsibility of the government to preserve that right.

Do we indeed have such a moral instinct as Jefferson believed in? Does it tell us what our rights are? Do our rights come from the Constitution, or from God?

Bibliography

Jefferson, Thomas. The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson. ed. by Adrienne Koch and William Peden, New York, The Modern Library, 1972.

Locke, John. Treatise of Civil Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., New York, 1959.

Padover, Saul K. Jefferson, New American Library, New York, 1970.