TOS Blog: Daily Commentary from an Objectivist Perspective

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

What to Celebrate on Independence Day

Posted by Craig Biddle at 6:00 am ET

On July 4, 1776, the Founding Fathers declared to the world not only that the colonies would henceforth be independent from Britain, but also, and more fundamentally,

that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

This was the beginning of the first moral country on earth—a country in which individual rights were to be explicitly recognized and protected.

Although slavery persisted for several decades after the founding, this aberration was ultimately recognized as incompatible with the basic principle of America and thus eradicated. Between the end of the Civil War and the turn of the century, America came close to being a fully rights-respecting society. Men were essentially free to live their own lives, by their own judgment, for their own sake. This was the Land of Liberty. And this is what we should work to achieve again.

On the Fourth of July, celebrate not the rights-violating, welfare state that America has become, but what America once was and could be again. Celebrate man’s “unalienable Rights.” Celebrate the principle that the proper purpose of government is “to secure these rights.” Celebrate the principle that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.” And, most of all, celebrate the Founders, who recognized and codified these principles, thus making possible the degree of freedom we still enjoy and the moral ideal to which we should return.

Let the fireworks explode!

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Posted in: History, Individual Rights and Law

Comments are welcome so long as they are civil.
  • http://www.facebook.com/dale.netherton Dale Netherton

    The next time you hear a government official claim the government needs to expand, remind them the government was created by the citizens for a specific purpose ( to protect individual rights) and a bigger government that violates individual rights is neither necessary or desirable.  Taxation is a violation of individual rights.

  • Anonymous

    Well said!  

    What’s absent from the declaration is a reference to property.  Ironically, the Founding Fathers could have picked up principles from England’s great 18th century jurist, William Blackstone.  His 1765 Commentaries commenced “III. The third absolute right, inherent in every Englishman, is that of property: which consists in the free use, enjoyment, and disposal of all his acquisitions, without any control or diminution, save only by the laws of the land.”See http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s5.html