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"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.-That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men..."

The 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence have already considered the question of whether individuals have absolute rights governments should protect, and have answered in the affirmative. The rights they cited were life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and their existence, they said, was self-evident. Perhaps we ought just leave the issue there, but we can also look at some of the people who influenced America's founding fathers.

One of those people was John Locke, an English philosopher born in 1632. In his "Second Treatise of Government," he describes a similar Law of Nature, taught to us by reason, knowable by all. He says:

"And Reason, which is that Law, 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."

And as the Declaration says our natural rights our endowed by our Creator, so Locke says that man is the workmanship of an "infinitely wise Maker," and that we are "made to last during his, and not another's Pleasure." Locke also affirms that it is the job of government to preserve this Law of Nature, saying:

"And that all Men may be restrained from invading others Rights, and from doing hurt to one another, and the Law of Nature be observed, which willeth the Peace and Preservation of all Mankind, the Execution of the Law of Nature is in the State, put into every Mans hands, whereby every one has a right to punish the transgressors of that Law to such a Degree, as may hinder its violation."

If you don't like the idea that God has endowed us with natural rights, you may also notice here that Locke says that observing his Law of Nature wills peace, and the preservation of mankind.

A second influential individual was Montesquieu, a French political thinker who was born in 1689. The importance he placed on natural rights is debatable, and I refer you for more information to the essay by Michael Zuckert accessed by the link following this article. In this essay Zuckert argues that Montesquieu accepted Locke's conception of rights by endorsing self-ownership. Locke called rights property to emphasize that it was not acceptable to infringe upon them. Montesquieu acknowledges that historically, many governments have not had as their goal the guarding of the natural rights of their people. He does, however, believe that the good government will.

2 Nw. U. J. Int'l Hum. Rts. 4 at http://www.law.northwestern.ed u/journals/jihr/v2/4

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