Americas Abandonment of Natural Law Essay -- Exploratory Essays Resea

Americas Abandonment of inborn legal philosophy The Declaration of Independence forthrightly states We underpin these truths to be self evident that all men ar created equal, that they are endowed by their manufacturing business with certain inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pastime of happiness. The origin of these Rights is ...the Laws of Nature and of Natures God... (Declaration of Independence). The Founders used the principle of Natural Law as the basis for the Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution. This makes the image of Natural Rights extraordinarily important when examining the foundations of our government. However, despite this, the Natural Law line of descent seems to have become lost in current politics and juridical debates. Why is this? I believe it arises due to two main problems. First, the American people have lost faith in a Creator who serves as the basis for these rights. Secondly, in reactio n to the former, scholars, as well as, settle have begun to focus on conventional rights, such as those in the Constitution, instead of Natural Rights. In this article, I will examine where the ideal of Natural Law originated, what it means, and demonstrate its absence from current politics. John Locke, a man the Founders looked to for the philosophical foundations of this nation, used the term Natural Law in his Second Treatise on Government. He wrote, The State of Nature has a Law of Nature to govern it which obliges everyone... that being all equal and independent no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions (Locke, 270-71). His idea was root in the belief that Nature created man and, th... ...an act of legislation which is untoward to the first great principles of social compact (those in the Declaration of Independence) cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority and must thusly be overturned. Justice Thom as eloquently sums up the need for the reemergence of the Natural Law argument in his article Toward a Plain Reading of the Constitution when he writes The first purposes of equality and liberty should inspire our political and constitutional thinking. full treatment Cited Basler, Roy, ed. capital of Nebraska in Text and Context The Collected Works. vol. IV. New Brunswick Rutgers University Press, 1953. Fehrenbacher, Don. Abraham Lincoln A Documentary Portrait. Stanford Stanford University Press, 1964. Locke, John. Two Treatises of Government. Ed. Peter Laslett. Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1993