James Madison

If there be a government then which prides itself in maintaining the inviolability of property; which provides that none shall be taken directly even for public use without indemnification to the owner, and yet directly violates the property which individuals have in their opinions, their religion, their persons, and their faculties; nay more, which indirectly violates their property, in their actual possessions, in the labor that acquires their daily subsistence, and in the hallowed remnant of time which ought to relieve their fatigues and soothe their cares, the influence [inference?] will have been anticipated, that such a government is not a pattern for the United States.

If the United States mean to obtain or deserve the full praise due to wise and just governments, they will equally respect the rights of property, and the property in rights: they will rival the government that most sacredly guards the former; and by repelling its example in violating the latter, will make themselves a pattern to that and all other governments.

In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights

Natural Law

Natural Right

Complaints made against King

Natural Right Claims

"No one has a right to another's property"

Opponent of slavery "moral depravity", "hideous blot", greatehst threat to the survival of Americans, defied natural law

slavery was like "holding a wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him nor safely let go"

Equality, Cato Letters no. 45

We cannot bring more natural Advantages into the World than other Men do; but we can acquire more Virtue in it than we generally acquire. To be great is not in every Man's Power; but to be good is in the Power of all: Thus far every Man may be [u]pon a Level with another, the Lowest with the Highest: and Men might thus come to be morally as well as naturally equal.

Men are naturally equal, and none ever rose above the rest but by Force or Consent: No Man was ever born above all the rest, nor below them all; and therefore there never was any Man in the World so good or so bad, so high or so low, but he had his Fellow. Nature is a kind and benevolent Parent; she constitutes no particular Favourites with Endowments and Privileges above the rest; but for the most part sends all her Offspring into the World furnished with the Elements of Understanding and Strength, to provide for themselves: She gives them Heads to consult their own Security, and Hands to execute their own Counsels; and according to the Use that they make of their Faculties, and of the Opportunities that they find, Degrees of Power and Names of Distinction grow amongst them, and their natural Equality is lost.

Whoever pretends to be naturally superior to other Men, claims from Nature what she never gave to any Man. He sets up for being more than a Man; a Character with which Nature has nothing to do. She has thrown her Gifts in common amongst us; and as the highest Offices of Nature fall to the Share of the Mean as well as of the Great, her vilest Offices are performed by the Great as well as by the Mean: Death and Diseases are the Portion of Kings as well as of Clowns; and the Corpse of a Monarch is no more exempted from Stench and Putrefaction, than the Corpse of a Slave.

The first Founders of great Families were not always Men of Virtue or Parts; and where they were so, those that came after them did frequently, and almost generally, by trusting to their Blood, disgrace their Na

Submission to the Authorities

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

Fulfilling the Law Through Love

8 wOwe no one anything, except to love each other, for xthe one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

Election Sermon

In a state of nature men are equal, exactly on a par in regard to authority: each one is a law to
himself, having the law of God, the sole rule of conduct, written on his heart.

And as its origin is from the people, who have not only a right, but are bound in duty, for the
preservation of the property and liberty of the whole society, to lodge it in such hands as they judge
best qualified to answer its intention; so when it is misapplied to other purposes, and the public,
as it always will, receives damage from the abuse, they have the same original right, grounded
on the same fundamental reasons, and are equally bound in duty to resume it, and transfer it to
others.—These are principles which will not be denied by any good and loyal subject of his present
Majesty King George, either in Great-Britain or America—The royal right to the throne absolutely
depends on the truth of them,—and the revolution, an event seasonable and happy both to the
mother country and these colonies, evidently supports them, and is supported by them....

Right of Revolution, Farmer Refuted

Federalist Papers

They have supposed, that the deity, from the relations, we stand in, to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is, indispensibly, obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever.

Upon this law, depend the natural rights of mankind, the supreme being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beatifying that existence. He endowed him with rational faculties, by the help of which, to discern and pursue such things, as were consistent with his duty and interest, and invested him with an inviolable right to personal liberty, and personal safety.

Hence, in a state of nature, no man had any moral power to deprive another of his life, limbs, property or liberty; nor the least authority to command, or exact obedience from him; except that which arose from the ties of consanguinity.

There are some events in society, to which human laws cannot extend; but when applied to them lose all their force and efficacy. In short, when human laws contradict or discountenance the means, which are necessary to preserve the essential rights of any society, they defeat the proper end of all laws, and so become null and void.

AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.