Property Rights

"Property Rights"

Among our unalienable rights is the right to private property. Property is more than just real estate. It is everything we do and have. According to John Locke, "Every man has a property in his own person." The French economist Fredrick Bastiat defined property thus, ""Property, in a broad sense, is the right to enjoy the fruits of one's labor, the right to work, to develop, [and] to exercise one's faculties, according to one's own understanding, without the state intervening otherwise than by its protective action."

The very idea of "natural law" and its corollary "natural rights" are at the heart of America's founding. These ideas represent the crowning glory of thousands of years of trial and error known as Western Civilization. They did not spring from a vacuum in the mind of Thomas Jefferson in his Declaration of Independence, "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."

Western Civilization is defined by a rich intellectual tradition that interweaves classical Greco-Roman philosophy with Judeo-Christian biblical morality. From the ancient Greeks, in particular Aristotle, we get logic and science. From the ancient Romans, in particular Cicero, we get the rule of law, especially the idea of "natural law". From the biblical tradition we get the concept of free will (liberty), the sanctity of the individual, and the moral code of society (the "golden rule"). Intermediate steps include the Magna Carta in 1215 and the associated concept of British Common Law. Pre-dating Jefferson by a century, we have John Locke's, "Essays on the Laws of Nature" in 1676.

The U.S. Constitution does not grant our rights. Rather, for the first time in history, mankind has a governing document with a codified system for recognizing and protecting these rights. These rights pre-exist any political system and are based on our very humanity itself. Besides the self-evident truths of the Declaration, Jefferson also wrote, "A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." We also have John Adams, "You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments...rights derived from the Great Legislator of the universe."

In more recent times we have the words of Chief Justice William J. Brennan, "The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting." And of John F. Kennedy, "The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God." The writings and speeches of Ronald Reagan are rich in references to our creator-endowed natural rights, as are those of the current President George W. Bush.

Aristotle first noted the difference between public and private property, "What is common to many is least taken care of, for all men have greater regard for what is their own than for what they possess in common with others." Two thousand years later, Locke defined the proper role of government, "Government has no