The ideas behind 1776 · Natural law, rights and limited government
The Principles of Liberty
The men who wrote the Declaration and the Constitution drew on centuries of thought about law, rights and government. These ideas, more than any single battle, explain what they were trying to build.
Natural law
The founders believed in a higher law built into nature by the Creator, which human governments must respect. The Roman statesman Cicero taught that true law is right reason in agreement with nature. W. Cleon Skousen's book The 5000 Year Leap presents natural law as the first of 28 principles of liberty behind the founding.
Unalienable rights
The Declaration says people are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," among them life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Because these rights come from God rather than government, government cannot justly take them away. The English philosopher John Locke, who wrote of natural rights to life, liberty and property, shaped this language.
Separation of powers
The French writer Montesquieu argued in The Spirit of the Laws that liberty is safest when legislative, executive and judicial power are held by different hands. Madison wrote that concentrating all power in the same hands is the very definition of tyranny. The Constitution divides power among Congress, the President and the courts.
Checks and balances
Each branch has ways to limit the others: the presidential veto, Congress's power to override it, the Senate's role in appointments and treaties, and the courts' review of laws. The goal is not efficiency but safety from abuse.
Virtue and self-government
Many founders wrote that a free people can govern themselves only if they are virtuous and moral. Laws alone cannot hold a republic together if citizens lack self-restraint.
A written constitution and peaceful foreign policy
Britain's constitution was unwritten. The founders insisted on a written charter so that citizens could hold government to specific, limited powers. In foreign affairs, Washington and Jefferson both warned against entangling alliances; Jefferson summed it up as "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations."
Think you know Liberty? In Founders' Trivia, Liberty steps forward and quizzes you on his own life.
Play Founders' Trivia free