5000 Year Leap (14 page)

   In fact, it was soon discovered that the new industrial age required large quantities of private funds in order to build factories, purchase complicated machinery and tools, and provide millions of jobs which had never existed before.

   The Founders felt that America would become a nation dominated by a prosperous middle class with a few people becoming rich. As for the poor, the important thing was to insure the freedom to prosper so that no one would be locked into the poverty level the way people have been in all other parts of the world.

   It was realized, of course, that some would prosper more than others. That is inevitable as long as there is liberty. Some would prosper because of talent, some because of good fortune, some because of an inheritance, but most would prosper because of hard work.

   The entire American concept of "freedom to prosper" was based on the belief that man's instinctive will to succeed in a climate of liberty would result in the whole people prospering together. It was thought that even the poor could lift themselves through education and individual effort to become independent and self-sufficient.

   The idea was to maximize prosperity, minimize poverty, and make the whole nation rich. Where people suffered the loss of their crops or became unemployed, the more fortunate were to help. And those who were enjoying "good times" were encouraged to save up in store for the misfortunes which seem to come to everybody someday. Hard work, frugality, thrift, and compassion became the key words in the American ethic.

   What happened in America under these principles was remarkable in every way. Within a short time the Americans, as a people, were on the way to becoming the most prosperous and best-educated nation in the world (which was amazing to de Tocqueville when he arrived in 1831). They were also the freest people in the world. Eventually, the world found that they were also the most generous people on earth. And all this was not because they were Americans. The Founders believed these same principles would work for any nation. The key was using the government to protect equal rights, not to provide equal things. As previously mentioned, Samuel Adams said the ideas of a welfare state were made unconstitutional:

   "The utopian schemes of leveling [redistribution of the wealth], and a community of goods [central ownership of all the means of production and distribution], are as visionary and impracticable as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional."
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   As mentioned earlier, disciples of the collectivist Left in the Founders' day as well as our own have insisted that compassion for the poor requires that the Federal government become involved in taking from the "haves" and giving to the "have nots." Benjamin Franklin had been one of the "have nots," and after living several years in England where he saw government welfare programs in operation, he had considerable to say about these public charities of counterproductive compassion.

   Franklin wrote a whole essay on the subject and told one of his friends, "I have long been of your opinion, that your legal provision for the poor [in England] is a very great evil, operating as it does to the encouragement of idleness. We have followed your example, and begin now to see our error, and, I hope, shall reform it."
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   A survey of Franklin's views on counter-productive compassion might be summarized as follows:

   1. Compassion which gives a drunk the means to increase his drunkenness is counter-productive.
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   2. Compassion which breeds debilitating dependency and weakness is counter-productive.
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   3. Compassion which blunts the desire or necessity to work for a living is counter-productive.
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   4. Compassion which smothers the instinct to strive and excel is counter-productive.
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   Nevertheless, the Founders recognized that it is a mandate of God to help the poor and underprivileged. It is interesting how they said this should be done.

   Franklin wrote:

   "To relieve the misfortunes of our fellow creatures is concurring with the Deity; it is godlike; but, if we provide encouragement for laziness, and supports for folly, may we not be found fighting against the order of God and Nature, which perhaps has appointed want and misery as the proper punishments for, and cautions against, as well as necessary consequences of, idleness and extravagance? Whenever we attempt to amend the scheme of Providence, and to interfere with the government of the world, we had need be very circumspect, lest we do more harm than good."
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   Nearly all of the Founders seem to have acquired deep convictions that assisting those in need had to be done through means which might be called "calculated" compassion. Highlights from their writings suggest the following:

   1. Do not help the needy completely. Merely help them to help themselves.

   2. Give the poor the satisfaction of "earned achievement" instead of rewarding them without achievement.

   3. Allow the poor to climb the "appreciation ladder" -- from tents to cabins, cabins to cottages, cottages to comfortable houses.

   4. Where emergency help is provided, do not prolong it to the point where it becomes habitual.

   5. Strictly enforce the scale of "fixed responsibility." The first and foremost level of responsibility is with the individual himself; the second level is the family; then the church; next the community; finally the county, and, in a disaster or emergency, the state. Under no circumstances is the federal government to become involved in public welfare. The Founders felt it would corrupt the government and also the poor. No Constitutional authority exists for the federal government to participate in charity or welfare.

   By excluding the national government from intervening in the local affairs of the people, the Founders felt they were protecting the
unalienable rights
of the people from abuse by an over-aggressive government. But just what are "unalienable" rights? This brings us to our next principle.

   
   Endowed by the Creator ...

   The Founders did not believe that the basic rights of mankind originated from any social compact, king, emperor, or governmental authority. Those rights, they believed, came directly and exclusively from God. Therefore, they were to be maintained sacred and inviolate, John Locke said it this way:

   "The state of Nature has a law of Nature to govern it, which ... teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions; for men being all the workmanship of one omnipotent and infinitely wise maker; all the servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by His order and about His business; they are His property....

   "And, being furnished with like faculties, sharing all in one community of Nature, there cannot be supposed any such subordination among us that may authorize us to destroy one another."
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   The substantive nature of those rights which are inherent in all mankind was described by William Blackstone in his
Commentaries on the Laws of England
:

   "Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as are life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolable. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture."
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   In other words, we may do something ourselves to forfeit the unalienable rights endowed by the Creator, but no one else can
take
those rights from us without being subject to God's justice. This is what makes certain rights
unalienable
. They are inherent rights given to us by the Creator. That is why they are called
natural
rights.

   We also have certain other rights called
vested
rights which are created by the community, state, or nation for our protection or well-being. However, these can be changed any time the lawmakers feel like it.

   An example of a vested right would be the right to go hunting during certain seasons. Or the right to travel on the public highway. Notice that the government can change both of these "rights" or prohibit them altogether. The region could be declared off-limits for hunting. The highway could be closed.

   But the government could not pass a law to destroy all babies under the age of two, or lock up everybody with blonde hair. In the one case it would be destroying the unalienable right to life, and in the other case it would be destroying the unalienable right to liberty. A person can lose his liberty through his own misbehavior, but not because he has blonde hair!

   When the Founders adopted the Declaration of Independence, they emphasized in phrases very similar to those of Blackstone that God has endowed all mankind "with certain unalienable rights, that
among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

   Let us identify some of the unalienable or natural rights which the Founders knew existed but did not enumerate in the Declaration of Independence:

   The right of self-government.
   The right to bear arms for self-defense.
   The right to own, develop, and dispose of property.
   The right to make personal choices.
   The right of free conscience.
   The right to choose a profession.
   The right to choose a mate.
   The right to beget one's kind.
   The right to assemble.
   The right to petition.
   The right to free speech.
   The right to a free press.
   The right to enjoy the fruits of one's labors.
   The right to improve one's position through barter and sale.
   The right to contrive and invent.
   The right to explore the natural resources of the earth.
   The right to privacy.
   The right to provide personal security.
   The right to provide nature's necessities -- air, food, water, clothing, and shelter.
   The right to a fair trial.
   The right of free association.
   The right to contract.

   It was very common among the Founders to express their sentiments concerning man's unalienable rights in almost the same language as Jefferson. Here are the words of the Virginia Declaration of Rights adopted by the Virginia assembly June 12, 1776 (
before
the Declaration of Independence!):

   "All men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."
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   Notice that the words of the Declaration of Independence are very similar when it says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, 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."

   Some scholars have wondered just what Jefferson mean by "the pursuit of happiness," but the meaning of this phrase was well understood when it was written. Perhaps John Adams said it even more clearly:

   "All men are born free and independent, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights, among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness."
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   Of course, the concept of unalienable rights was by no means exclusive to the American Founders. It was well understood by English defenders of the common law. Eleven years before the Declaration of Independence, Sir William Blackstone had written this concerning the natural rights of man: