MENU

A Dubious July 4th Celebration

By Dr. Jerome Huyler

June 15, 2026

SUBSCRIBE TO SAVVY STREET (It's Free)

 

Americans are about to go hog wild nuts over the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Americans are about to go hog wild nuts over the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The cheering, celebrating and exalting in this summer’s festivities will attract millions who yet feel a genuine pride in the country’s accomplishments. And why not? The United States is the greatest country there has ever been.

Yes, it is. After all, a country is as great as it is free. And after 250 years the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights (free speech, a free press, religious liberty, protections for the accused, etc.) are still very much honored.

And yet this July 4th there will be little cause for celebration. Why is that? Having studied the American founding era all my adult life and completed my doctoral dissertation on the principles that informed the American Revolution, I know better. When you consider what Jefferson’s Declaration actually declared, you start to realize that the principles set forth in that document are buried beneath 250 years of purely pragmatic political practices. The original significance of Jefferson’s momentous declaration is little appreciated and even less understood by today’s generations.

After all, a country is as great as it is free.

“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” for Jefferson, were not fancy buzzwords to justify a rebellion against constituted authority. They were absolute, irrepressible natural rights to which citizens (if only white males) were absolutely entitled. That included the resolute right to property, the right to gain, keep, use, trade or otherwise dispose of one’s freely-acquired possessions—no matter how meager, no matter how much. Properly understood, property rights form the bridge connecting politics to economics. And they sternly limit the lawful power any government can exert.

Are these rights granted by government? Definitely not. Are they gifts from God? Many would say yes, but not the gentlemen of the Enlightenment. They followed Locke in stipulating that

The State of Nature has a Law of Nature to govern it and Reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions (2nd Treatise of Government, §4).

John Locke, in his Second Treatise on Government, spoke of three specific natural rights, “life, liberty and property.” While Jefferson did not allude to the protection of “property,” as Locke had, he certainly intended to include the protection of life, liberty and property. As his fellow revolutionary, John Dickinson, explained during the Revolutionary period:

Let these truths be indelibly impressed on our minds—that we cannot be happy without being free—that we cannot be free, without being secure in our property—that we cannot be sure in our property, if, without our consent, others may, as by right take it away . . .

If liberty is largely consumed in labor, and the just fruit of one’s labor is one’s property (whether obtains as wages, salary or business profits), then the absolute Right to gain, keep, use, trade or otherwise dispose of one’s property must be honored and not politically sacrificed for the sake of the “general welfare,” “common good” or any special interest that pleads with Congress for special privileges.

Although the framers of the Constitution every bit as much as the signers of the Declaration fully intended to secure men’s inherent property rights, the language they employed was feeble and woefully inadequate. Thus, the Fifth Amendment states: “No person shall be denied life, liberty or property without due process of law.” Apparently, the framers of the Constitution believed that language was plain enough and potent enough to secure those rights forever. In this, they were woefully mistaken.

In time, the Supreme Court would define “due process” as any legal procedure that Congress might conduct no matter how much property would be taken and given away under its auspices.  This would be called “procedural due process,” wildly different from “substantive due process” which would have protected people in the enjoyment of what was theirs.

The Constitution should have stipulated something like: “Every man having the undisputed right to gain, keep, use, trade or otherwise dispose of his freely-acquired possessions, Congress shall pass no law taxing or otherwise depriving some for the benefit of others. It was self-evident for Jefferson’s generation that “all men are created equal.”

“Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” said Jefferson. But there is only so much to which the governed can consent. As no individual has a right to take away or give away that which belongs to another, so no number of individuals can confer such a violation of sacred right on their elected representatives.  Jefferson’s government was to be a PROTECTOR, not a PROVIDER. In sum, governments are instituted among men to protect all in the enjoyment of what is theirs—their lives, liberties and possessions.

What today’s politicians call “redistributive efforts, the founders would call theft.

What today’s politicians call “redistributive efforts, the founders would call theft. For the entire course of this country’s history, that understanding has been essentially disregarded. In thousands of ways today’s governing institutions are empowered not to protect, but to provide individuals and corporations with special benefits, privileges, exemptions and immunities, invariably at others’ expense.

It begins with heavy taxes that are levied so that government can accommodate the demands made by so many special interest groups. Congress is where counterfeit capitalists and entitlement enthusiasts go to get special benefits at their neighbors’ expense. State and national legislatures are free to give away the goodies for which special interests have been pleading since the earliest days of the republic.

Government on all levels impose heavy tax levies so that they may give away (i.e., redistribute) a plethora of “entitlements.” Any family that pays upwards of 50% in combined federal/state/local income taxes, property, payroll, sales, social security, utility, estate and capital gains taxes is only half-slave/half-free.  It’s no wonder that life is becoming “unaffordable.”

What governments take, via taxation, was once considered “the just fruits of honest industry.”  Today, less than 25% of what the federal government spends is devoted to defending us from foreign aggression and domestic criminality. The remaining 75% goes to redistributing wealth.

There is nothing wrong with charity and Americans, the freest and most prosperous are the most generous and caring people to ever people the planet. Most Americans in receipt of public assistance today are able-bodied and of working age. Of course, many are heads of commercial and industrial enterprises that send high-paid lobbyists to the halls of government.

Most Americans in receipt of public assistance today are able-bodied and of working age.

What Jefferson understood and what today’s Americans fail to realize is that what anyone earns, he/she owns. Whether obtained as wages, salary or business profits, one’s freely-acquired income does not belong to society so that Congress can take away and give away as much as it pleases.

It is indeed ironic that notwithstanding the explosive celebrations to come, this country is proceeding along the road to serfdom and foregoing its property rights at a rapid pace. The idea of socialism captivates a growing portion of the population. It is openly advocated by prominent opinion leaders and candidates running for local and high national office. What is there to celebrate, really?

Today’s politics is run on a single admonition: do whatever works. And things generally can work—for a while. But, time after time, a long series of bonehead policies, fueled by sundry forms of corruption, eventually drive the economy into a ditch. The savings-and-loan crisis that exploded in 1988 and the subprime mortgage fiasco that struck in 2008 are the latest examples of this devilish pattern. Crises can be slow to strike. But strike they do.

So, we have a right and a reason to ask how and when did America lose sight of the natural rights regime Locke bequeathed to us and which Jefferson’s generation overtly rekindled?

 

 

(Visited 13 times, 13 visits today)