Declarations of Rights and Human Rights

The Declaration of Independence and the Declaration of the Rights of Man gave significant political context to fundamental rights, introducing the concept of "self-evident" truths. These truths, though seemingly obvious, required philosophical development and societal acceptance, being characterized by naturalness, universality, and equality of inherent human rights. Historically, rights evolved from distinguishing humans from divine beings and animals to universal, natural principles championed by philosophers like Locke, Rousseau, Blackstone, and Condorcet.

The acceptance of self-evident rights stems from an interplay of emotion and reason, emphasizing individual autonomy, the idea of each person as a fundamental unit, and empathy to internalize universal equality and independence. These concepts are foundational to liberal democracy, which features individual freedom, institutionalized civil rights, popular sovereignty, limited government, multiparty electoral systems, market capitalism with property protections, the rule of law, and independent courts.

The theory of rights progressed from religiously inspired morals to codified legal documents. Philosophers like Grotius and Hobbes derived rights from human nature, Locke made them "palatable" by linking them to individual liberty, property, and government's purpose, and Kant universalized them. John Locke's "granddaddy of liberty" ideas posited a state of nature characterized by perfect freedom and equality, where liberty is constrained by the law of nature, not license. Property is created by mixing one's labor with common resources.

The critical problem within Locke's state of nature is the lack of impartial adjudication, leading to partiality and disorder; civil government is the remedy. This government is formed through a voluntary social contract, where individuals mutually consent to create a body politic to preserve their property (life, liberty, and estate). If the government breaches this trust by destroying property or reducing citizens to arbitrary power, the people have a right to revolution.

The Declaration of Independence (1776) reflects these Lockean principles, justifying separation from Britain. It asserts core self-evident truths: all men are created equal, endowed with unalienable rights (Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness). Governments are instituted to secure these rights, deriving just powers from the consent of the governed. When a government becomes destructive of these ends, the people have the right to alter or abolish it. Revolution, while not taken for "light and transient causes," becomes a right and duty after a "long train of abuses and usurpations" revealing a design toward despotism. The Declaration listed numerous grievances against King George III and asserted the rights of free and independent states.

Key rights explicitly stated or implied include sovereign control, equality, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness, consent to government, right to protect these rights, right to revolution, and various procedural rights like trial by jury and consent to taxation. Locke's social contract theory provides a rational basis for government legitimacy and resistance but faces critiques regarding its hypothetical nature and potential for instability.