Correct, although most so-called Conservatives here on Freerepublic have no clue what that means.
The Law of Nations or the Principles of Natural Law (1758)
The Laws of Nature and of Nature's God: The True Foundation of American Law
....And because this principle was supposed not to have been expressed with sufficient precision, and certainty, an amendatory article was proposed, adopted, and ratified; whereby it is expressly 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.” This article is, indeed, nothing more than an express recognition of the law of nations; for Vattel informs us, “that several sovereign, and independent states may unite themselves together by a perpetual confederacy, without each in particular ceasing to be a perfect state. They will form together a federal republic: the deliberations in common will offer no violence to the sovereignty of each member, though they may in certain respects put some constraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of voluntary engagements.
View of the Constitution of the United States George Tucker
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At least some of us still get it. :-)
That's one of the reasons I became a Declarationist. The creeping evil can quibble about the wording of the Constitution all day, every day - but they find it infinitely more difficult to become Declaration-deniers.
I'm surprised that this little comma tart from the NYT Palace Guard would open this line of attack on the Declaration. Researching further, we find that ANOTHER Haaavaaad termite by the name of Danielle S. Allen has been chewing on the foundations of the Declaration, and is the one who inspired tartlette Schuessler.
Naturally, The Washington Pest, which reviewed Allen's book on the Declaration, chose to get the wording of the Declaration wrong, but put it in quotes to con the unwary:
...and that people have the “inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” — whatever that means.
Let us clarify for the Post Toasties, Obama spear-catchers extraordinaire:
While inalienable and unalienable are today used interchangeably with inalienable more common, the terms have historically sometimes been distinguished.
Regarding current usage being interchangeable:
The unalienable rights that are mentioned in the Declaration of Independence could just as well have been inalienable, which means the same thing. Inalienable or unalienable refers to that which cannot be given away or taken away. However, the Founders used the word "unalienable" as defined by William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1:93, when he defined unalienable rights as: "Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolable. On the contrary, no human legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture."...in other words a person may do something to forfeit their unalienable rights...for instance the unalienable right to freedom which can be forfeited by the commission of a crime for which they may be punished by their loss of freedom. However, once they are freed after serving their punishment their right is restored.