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To: CpnHook; DiogenesLamp
The main points are that the founding principles of the United States recognize the right to abolish government, that ALL are equal - no one is endowed by God to be a god or to rule over others, that all have inalienable rights, and that government derives it's authority from the people.

As DiogenesLamp noted, in England claiming the right to abolish government will result in your execution. See, for example, Algernon Sidney.

Regarding Algernon Sidney:

Thomas Jefferson letter to Mason Locke Weems, December 13, 1804

I thank you for the pamphlet you were so kind as to send me which I have read with great satisfaction. you ask my opinion on the subject of publishing the works of Algernon Sidney. the world has so long and so generally sounded the praises of his Discourses on government, that it seems superfluous, and even presumptuous, for an individual to add his feeble breath to the gale. they are in truth a rich treasure of republican principles, supported by copious & cogent arguments, and adorned with the finest flowers of science. It is probably the best elementary book of the principles of government, as founded in natural right, which has ever been published in any language: and it is much to be desired in such a government as ours that it should be put into the hands of our youth as soon as their minds are sufficiently matured for that branch of study. In publishing it, I think his life, trial & letters should be thrown into one volume & the Discourses into another. the latter is the most important, & many purses can reach one volume which could not conveniently extend to the other. should you proceed to the publication, be so good as to consider me as a subscriber: and accept my salutations & assurances of great esteem & respect.

(emphasis added)

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mtj1&fileName=mtj1page031.db&recNum=954&itemLink=%2Fammem%2Fcollections%2Fjefferson_papers%2Fmtjser1.html&linkText=6

John Adams letter to Thomas Jefferson, September 18, 1823

With much pleasure I have heard read the sure words of prophecy in your letter of Sep 4th. It is melancholy to contemplate the cruel wars, dessolutions of Countries, and oceans of blood which must occur, before rational principles, and rational systems of Government can prevail and be established - but as these are inevitable we must content ourselves with the consolations which you from sound and sure reasons so clearly suggest These hopes are as well founded as our fears of of the contrary evils, on the whole, the prospect is cheering; I have lately undertaken to read Algernon Sidney on Government. There is a great difference in reading a Book at four and twenty, and at Eighty Eight, as often as I have read it; and fumbled it over; It now excites fresh admiration that this work has excited so little interest in the literary world—as splendid an Edition of it, as the art of printing can produce, as well as for the intrinsic merit of the work, as for the proof it brings of the bitter sufferings of the advocates of Liberty from that time to this and to show the slow progress of Moral philosophical political Illumination in the world ought to be now published in America.

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mtj1&fileName=mtj1page053.db&recNum=1172&itemLink=/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/mtjser1.html&linkText=6

418 posted on 02/06/2015 11:51:42 AM PST by Ray76 ("Unlike my mum, Ruth has all the documents needed to prove who Mark's father was.")
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To: Ray76
The main points are that the founding principles of the United States recognize the right to abolish government, that ALL are equal - no one is endowed by God to be a god or to rule over others, that all have inalienable rights, and that government derives it's authority from the people.

After the divinely appointed King Charles I was executed, England moved from a more absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy. The colonists moved things here from constitutional monarchy to constitutional republic. Yes, in one sense it was a radical change; though given where the Monarchy in England stands today, part of a historical trend. Theory usually follows action. No doubt writers like Sidney helped provide a framework of explanation.

The point of departure in this discussion was natural law. My point is that appeal to natural law doesn't answer the citizenship debate. Birthers think it does, assuming a biological sense to that term (the "it takes two cats to make a cat" notion). But as I've shown, Lord Coke's opinion in Calvin's Case was predicated on natural law.

So, yes, the Framers recognized natural law. But saying that doesn't answer the debate.

419 posted on 02/07/2015 8:37:45 AM PST by CpnHook
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