The Proper Role of Government | Eastern North Carolina Now

    The need for government, plain and simple, is because absolute freedom is impossible. However much we believe that freedom is the natural right of man, anarchy is not feasible in a world of evil and imperfect men.

    Governments, like those in the United States, are the intentional creations of free people. People mutually agree to transfer some of their rights to a governing body in order that they may live an ordered and more fruitful existence. Yes, they create governments so that liberty, in effect, can be enlarged. How is this possible? Consider how much freedom a person has who has to stay home to guard and protect his valuable property. He can't work successfully or travel freely. But police and fire departments can guard and protect his property on his behalf. In return, free people agree to be bound by the laws of government. And these laws, according to Natural law and natural rights, are specifically intended to prevent and punish bad conduct while promoting and rewarding good conduct.

    First and foremost, the role of a government is to protect individual rights. According to Cicero, the preeminent lawyer of ancient Rome, and the great thinkers of the Enlightenment Era such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbs, the primary role of government is to protect individual life, liberty, and property. To so do, a government must perform three basic functions: (1) Police - to protect individuals from domestic criminals and predators; (2) Military - to protect the community and individuals from foreign threats; and (3) Judiciary - to provide the means for individuals to settle disputes according to established law and without resorting to force. The government of a free people does not regulate its citizens nor does it coerce or influence their behavior in any way. The government of a free people is benevolent and not intrusive. Free and good people should never be afraid of their government. They should never be afraid to criticize it or seek to alter it so that it better suits their liberty needs. And should never be confronted with such voluminous statutes that they can't reasonably be expected to read or understand them or their implications and then be punished for it.

    In an ideal situation, as our early freedom-loving Americans and Founding Fathers envisioned, under a proper government, a private citizen is legally free to do as he pleases (as long as he doesn't violate the rights of others), while government is bound by laws and government officials are bound both by law and their oaths. In other words, a private citizen may do anything "except that which is legally forbidden and a government official may do nothing except that which is legally permitted." To some extent understanding of government helped our Founders almost unanimously realize that our country would be established as a republic rather than a pure democracy. We would be a nation of laws and not a nation of men. Under such a system, the rights of all individuals would be properly respected and protected.

    With the surrender of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown in 1781, the colonists won their independence from Great Britain and secured their liberty. But how would it be preserved? That was the question. The answer, according to our Founding Fathers, was a carefully-designed government, limited to the precise wording of a Constitution, which would protect those individual rights and liberties that the colonies had just fought for. The Constitution, written on behalf of a sovereign people, laid out a government of limited and clearly-defined responsibilities. All other responsibilities were left to the States and to the people themselves to manage their own lives and affairs.

    The fact that our Founding Fathers carefully crafted, debated, and ratified a Constitution to preserve the liberties they had just fought for is the key to understanding the spirit and construction of our great document. And the fact that representatives to a Continental Congress created and adopted a Declaration of Independence which set out the ideals and values upon which our newly independent nation would be established is further evidence.

    Our Declaration of Independence states: "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, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government............"

    As we can infer from the Declaration, our Founders believed that certain human liberties are so fundamental to one's existence, humanity, and individuality that they must come from our Creator. If that is the case, then no government can take them away.

    The wording that Thomas Jefferson chose for the Declaration is significant because it evidences a strong belief that our Founders had in Natural Law, a philosophy introduced by Marcus Tullius Cicero, the leading attorney of his day and defender of the Roman republic, and underpinning the ideals of a government "of the people, for the people." John Locke, William Blackstone, William Hobbs, and others based their philosophies of government on Natural Law, and it was these men who greatly inspired our Founders.

    Essentially, Natural law is what spontaneously arises when there is no government, because of "who we are" and who created us. It is not codified in any statute but is a matter deeply and fundamentally engrained in the human spirit. Cicero, who lived at the time of Julius Caesar, inferred the following from his observations of society, government, and depravity: Before there was government, there was the individual. A Creator, or higher power, who created the universe then created people. This higher power which created the universe also endowed humans with a bit of its own divinity. That is, He gave us the powers of speech, intelligent thought, reason, and wisdom. We love and nurture our young. We build life-long family units. (We are created "In His Image"). As a result of this "spark of divinity," humans are and should be (forever) linked to their Creator and should honor this relationship. Because humans share reason with this higher power, and because this higher power is presumed to be benevolent, it follows that humans, when employing reason correctly, will also be benevolent. Reason and benevolence form the foundation of law. When applied in a society, it is called justice. People can form strong and beneficial communities because laws will serve the good in man's nature and discourage and punish the bad.

    Natural Law is timeless. It is valid for all nations for all times. It operates best when men are virtuous and honorable, and it fails when men are greedy and depraved. One can argue that our Founder's fatal flaw in creating the Constitution was assuming that Americans could remain virtuous and honorable, because only then could laws and government serve the "good" nature in man and promote moral societies.

    Philosophers like Cicero reasoned that Natural law derives from the nature of man and the world, just as physical law derives from the nature of space, time, and matter. But Cicero's law presupposes a benevolent and intentional Creator. It is therefore a moral law. All men, being rational and tending towards benevolence, pursue paths and develop their potential dictated by their natures. That is, their conduct embodies moral and ethical codes. These values are the foundations of a good, strong, and productive society. Many may see where Natural law harmonizes with the theory of evolution.

   In his book on Natural Law, A. Kenneth Hasselberg wrote: "A social order is not possible unless man is able to conceive of those norms of conduct which are necessary to its establishment and preservation, namely, respect for another's person and for his rightful possessions, which is the substance of justice ... But justice is the product of reason, not the passions. And justice is the necessary support of the social order; and the social order is necessary to man's well-being and happiness. If this is so, the norms of justice must control and regulate the passions, and not vice versa."

   Critics will claim that natural law should serve man's "nature" and hence, what makes him 'happy,' but that would minimize and potentially contradict biological law. Biological law states that the driving force for all living things is the ability to successfully live and reproduce and propagate the species. http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard135.html - _ftn25Man can strive for material (and even amoral) happiness but if it harms his ability to exist successfully, then it's clear this criticism is flawed. Psychologist Leonard Carmichael wrote: "Because man has an unchanging and an age-old, genetically determined anatomical, physiological, and psychological make-up, there is reason to believe that at least some of the "values" that he recognized as good or bad have been discovered or have emerged as human individuals have lived together for thousands of years in many societies. Is there any reason to suggest that these values, once identified and tested, may not be thought of as essentially fixed and unchanging? For example, the wanton murder of one adult by another for the purely personal amusement of the person committing the murder, once it is recognized as a general wrong, is likely always to be so recognized. Such a murder has disadvantageous individual and social effects."
John Locke
   British philosopher, John Locke, took the Cicero's concept of Natural Law one step further and applied it to government. According to Locke, people (not rulers or governments) are sovereign. Individuals, possessing inherent rights, are the real sovereigns. Governments derive their consent and power from sovereign people under a compact theory (contract theory) doctrine. Consent can either be in written contract form (a constitution) or implied, by an implied agreement to be served by government and to subjected to its laws.

    In order to understand the premise for John Locke's theory on government, ask this question: Which comes first - individuals or governments? We all know the answer. Individuals, with certain fundamental sovereign rights, form into communities. They delegate their power over their rights and property to a local government to protect them. As John Locke explained: "Individuals have sovereign rights which no government can take away. (Government can only exercise power on behalf of the people). As such, government is morally obliged to serve people, namely by protecting life, liberty, and property."

    John Locke was one of the first great thinkers of the Enlightenment Era (or age of Reason). He believed in the sovereignty of the individual - the inherent rights of the individual to self-protection. Locke understood that the individual has natural rights to life, liberty and property, and therefore has the right to protect them. It is from this basic premise that he explored the role of government. We can read his views in his extensive essays entitled The Two Treatises of Government, published in 1688 and 1689. In the first treatise, Locke refutes the belief in the divine right of Kings. It is in the second treatise, however, where we see the fundamentals of Locke's political theory.

    Locke's fundamental assertion is one that follows Cicero's writings. He explains the state of nature has human beings enjoying most of their natural rights without the state. That is, rights are not granted by the state... only certain privileges. The fact that property could be freely exchanged, sold, or accumulated in that natural condition led Locke to argue that governments ought not interfere with most aspects of the economy and society. Moreover, he reasoned, no people living in a natural state of freedom would consent to have all their liberty taken away. Liberty is not the government's to take away. Therefore, any government requires the consent of the people to "protect the rights of life, liberty, and property" that the people themselves have the natural authority to do. (The right of self-protection). This, therefore, makes government 'conditional.' It also dictates that the role of the state ought to be limited to protecting life, liberty, and property from those few predatory members of the human race whom Locke referred to as the "quarrelsome and the contentious."

    As Locke explained in his Second Treatise on Government, each person is an individual sovereign, with inherent rights that he possesses over his person and his property (especially his intellectual and personal property). He reasoned: "How can we, as individuals, give consent to others - local government, state government, etc - to make rules for us if we don't have the original power to make rules for ourselves?"

    According to Locke, everyone is entitled to live once they are created (Life), everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it doesn't conflict with the first right (Liberty), and everyone is entitled to own all they create or gain through gift or trade so long as it doesn't conflict with the first two rights (Property). Since the role of government is limited, its power should also be limited. Locke proposed that government be limited through a separation of powers scheme, where each branch checks the other. He also stressed that once government becomes destructive of the reasons for its existence, then the people have the right, and even the moral obligation, to abolish it. We can see how strong an influence John Locke had on Thomas Jefferson and on our other Founders.

    Unfortunately, when laws become too numerous and detailed, they can destroy liberty just as surely and effectively as having no law. We are living witnesses to that today.

    John Locke wrote that the decision by a group of people to delegate authority to a government creates a social compact or social contract. Often the compact is memorialized in a constitution, a written agreement that sets limitations on government power and represents the consent of the people. Laws established for the community naturally flow from this initial agreement and therefore a constitution is superior to ordinary laws created by any legislature. Locke's idea of government is one of a limited constitutional regime. Therefore, according to Locke, constitutions are social contracts or social compacts. It is most reasonable to assume that our Founders, the States, and our early Americans viewed the US Constitution as such. If you read the Articles or Declarations of Secession drafted and adopted by the 11 states in 1860-61, many expressly state that the Constitution is a social compact.

    For example, read what South Carolina in its " Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union," adopted on December 24, 1860:

    "By this Constitution, certain duties were imposed upon the several States, and the exercise of certain of their powers was restrained, which necessarily implied their continued existence as sovereign States. But to remove all doubt, an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. On the 23d May , 1788, South Carolina, by a Convention of her People, passed an Ordinance assenting to this Constitution, and afterwards altered her own Constitution, to conform herself to the obligations she had undertaken.

    Thus was established, by compact between the States, a Government with definite objects and powers, limited to the express words of the grant. This limitation left the whole remaining mass of power subject to the clause reserving it to the States or to the people, and rendered unnecessary any specification of reserved rights."

    A social contract is an agreement intended to explain the appropriate relationship between individuals and their governments. People form an implicit social contract, ceding their natural rights to an authority to protect them from abuse. According to the dictionary, a social contract (aka, social compact) is a voluntary agreement among individuals by which, according to any of various theories, such as those put forth by Hobbes, Locke, or Rousseau, organized society is brought into being and invested with the right to secure mutual protection and welfare or to regulate the relations among its members.

    Locke explained that people escape their primitive state by forming into communities and thus entering a social contract under which the state provides protective services to its citizens. Locke regarded this type of contract as revocable. A government depends on the consent of those who are governed, which may be withdrawn at any time, thus dissolving the agreement and thereby invalidating the government. [In the case of a federation of states, for example, one state would no longer "give consent" and therefore dissociate itself from the contract, thereby dissolving its bond with the other states].

    In every compact or contract between two or more parties, there is mutual obligation. The failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement entirely releases the obligation of the other. This, in fact, was the position of the state of South Carolina in its Declaration of Secession.