The social compact theory of government says we give up some rights when we enter society. Yet twenty-nine years after the Constitution was written, this theory was refuted by Thomas Jefferson when he warned about this emerging dangerous theory.
SOCIAL COMPACT THEORY OF GOVERNMENT
According to Wikipedia:
Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler or magistrate (or to the decision of a majority), in exchange for protection of their remaining rights.”
Ben Franklin was opposed to such a theory. The very same Ben Franklin that signed the peace treaty with Great Britain that authorized the United States government to exist, once wrote:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” — Ben Franklin, November 11, 1755; Reply to the Governor
The U.S. Constitution created a government from delegated authority. How did your neighbor’s get the authority to delegate the power to tax your land, cancel your marriage, license your dogs, control the value of your labor, require you to swear oaths to their delegates, etc.?
Have your neighbors infused into government an authority that “We The People” did not ourselves have? Have they given life to our graven image that it should both speak and demand reverence and to kill? Have they given the graven image a right to demand reverence/worship (such as salute, courtroom oaths, perjury oaths)? Have they given the graven image a right to issue credentials so that all might receive a mark?
Some people believe we must forfeit rights and freedoms to have a “civil and orderly” society. Thomas Jefferson was there and he never had such a thought:
“These are our grievances, which we have thus laid before his Majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people, claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” — Thomas Jefferson, Rights of British America, 1774, page 141
“the idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights.” – Thomas Jefferson letter to F. W. Gilmer 1816.
Notice Jefferson’s word entering. You voluntarily enter society. Lawyers hinder your entering, just like it was in Luke 11:52.
U.S. Supreme Court:
“in the implied compact between the State and the citizen, certain rights are reserved by the latter which are guarantied by the constitutional provision protecting persons against being deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, and with which the State cannot interfere;”…
“, our system of government, based upon the individuality and intelligence of the citizen, does not claim to control him except as to his conduct to others, leaving him the sole judge as to all that only affects himself.”…
“As was said in Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 124, while power does not exist with the whole people to control rights that are purely and exclusively private, Government may require “each citizen to so conduct himself, and so use his own property, as not unnecessarily to injure another.”
— Mugler v. Kansas 123 US 623, 660 (1888)