Americas Abandonment of Natural Law Essay -- Exploratory Essays Resea

Americas Abandonment of Natural Law The firmness of Independence forthrightly states We hold these truths to be self evident that completely men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with accredited inalienable rights that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The origin of these Rights is ...the Laws of Nature and of Natures God... (Declaration of Independence). The Founders used the precept of Natural Law as the basis for the Declaration of Independence as well as the Constitution. This makes the concept of Natural Rights extraordinarily important when examining the foundations of our government. However, disdain this, the Natural Law argument seems to have become lost in current politics and judicial debates. Why is this? I believe it arises overdue to two main problems. First, the American people have lost trustfulness in a Creator who serves as the basis for these rights. Secondly, in reaction to the former, scho lars, as well as, judges have begun to focus on stately rights, such as those in the Constitution, instead of Natural Rights. In this oblige, I will examine where the concept of Natural Law originated, what it means, and demonstrate its absence from current politics. John Locke, a military personnel the Founders looked to for the philosophical foundations of this nation, used the terminus Natural Law in his Second Treatise on Government. He wrote, The verbalize of Nature has a Law of Nature to govern it which obliges everyone... that being solely equal and independent no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions (Locke, 270-71). His idea was rooted in the belief that Nature created man and, th... ...an act of legislation which is contrary to the first great principles of social squelch (those in the Declaration of Independence) cannot be considered a rightful exercise of legislative authority and must therefore be overturned. Just ice Thomas articulately 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 embolden our political and constitutional thinking. Works Cited Basler, Roy, ed. Lincoln in Text and scene 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. creature Laslett. Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1993