![]() ![]() In the legal sense, therefore, the law of unalienable rights is not a religious establishment, but is rather a legal convention from eternity. Whether it is also is a tenet of religion is quite beside the framer’s legal concern. 16 Civil recognition of the idea that unalienable rights come from God is a fundamental element of the laws of nature. It recognizes that unalienable rights are defined by God, not by the civil government. The Declaration tells us why these permanent characteristics attach to unalienable rights. The protection of unalienable rights is common in many state constitutions. Moreover, no future generation may be disenfranchised of any unalienable right by the present generation. Unalienable rights are retained despite government decrees to the contrary because civil government does not grant them in the first case. Unalienable rights are incapable of being lost or sold. ” Unalienable (or inalienable) means undeniable or inherent. It declares that all men 14 are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The Declaration of Independence restates a second principle of the laws of nature and of nature’s God. It is quite common, therefore, that contrary to the rule of equality, litigants seek to diminish the rights of others because of the other’s belief, or expand their own rights because of their own beliefs. The notion of rights conditioned upon status and religious belief has been much more preferred. Unfortunately, in many contexts including religious liberty litigation (as will be explored shortly) the principle of equality has been constantly ignored and labored against. #DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE FOR FREE#Meant to set up a standard maxim for free society, which should be familiar to all, and revered by all constantly looked to, constantly labored for, and even though never perfectly attained, constantly approximated, and thereby constantly spreading and deepening its influence and augmenting the happiness and value of life to all people of all colors everywhere. He said that through the Declaration, the framers, He spoke of this rule in a speech at Springfield in 1857. President Abraham Lincoln, referring to the Declaration of Independence, affirmed that the United States was “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that ‘all men are created equal’.” 12 Lincoln realized that the rule of equality applied to all men and nations without regard to the age in which they lived, their location on the globe, or the circumstances of history which surrounded them. Those who deny the rule of equality or its origins in the law of God, or who argue that equality is subject to changing cultural or social conditions, or who twist the meaning of equality to require government mandated quotas, do so in contravention of the principle of equality. 11 The law looks to what a person does, not who they are. The law is not a respecter of persons, however, if it treats persons differently on the basis of their acts or conduct. A law is a respecter of persons if it treats persons differently because of their immutable status or belief. In essence, the rule of legal equality requires that the law be no respecter of persons. As long as the law guarantees the right of an individual to participate on an equal basis with other individuals in achieving the desired social position, economic condition or political strength, then differences in outcome or result do not contravene the rule of legal equality. Political power is a function of political involvement and knowledge of the political system. It is a function of individual labor and enterprise. Social and economic achievement is a function of behavior or conduct. The Declaration’s recognition that “all men are created equal” does not mean that the civil government must treat each person the same on the basis of what they do or on the basis of their conduct. 10 The second consequence of the rule of legal equality is that it neither mandates nor permits the civil government to ensure equal social position, economic well-being or political power. The first is that all human beings are endowed with the right to enjoy equal legal rights, legal opportunity and legal protection. There are at least two consequences of this proposition. The Declaration asserts that mankind is created and that as far as the law is concerned, mankind is created equally human by God. It is a legal fact acknowledged to be “self-evident.” The Declaration is a legal instrument. This proposition is not the incantation of a religious establishment. The Declaration asserts that “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” The rule of equality is tied to the creation of mankind by God. One of the first principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence is that of equality. ![]()
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