This is adopted from and modernized to your 21st Century from what was written in 1772 and commented on by Dr. Franklin in a forward as published in Philadelphia and the rest of the Colonies of the day. Please take the time to read your heritage regarding The Rights of the Colonist and now YOU – The Citizen!
Regarding Samuel Adams Report in Boston and to the Committee on Correspondence
A 21st Century Benjamin Franklin’s Preface to the New Edition of the Report on the Historical Rights of the US Citizen formally the Colonist
All accounts of the discontent so prevalent in our States have during the last dozen years has been industriously smothered and concealed here; it seeming to suit the views of the Politicians and Bureaucrats, to have it understood that by their great abilities all faction was subdued, all opposition suppressed, and the whole country quieted. That the true state of affairs in the United States may be known, and the true causes of that discontent well understood, the following piece (not the production of a private writer, but the unanimous act of a large American city), formerly printed in New England, is republished here (in modern blogs and web sites). This nation, and the other nations of the world, may thereby learn, with more certainty, the grounds of a dissension that possibly may, sooner or later, have consequences interesting to them all.
The States had from their first establishment at the time of the Declaration of Independence, been governed with more ease than perhaps can be equaled by any instance in the history of world governments. Their affection and respect for this country, while they were treated Constitutionally, produced an almost implicit obedience to the acts of the Federal Administrations, and even to acts of Congress at large; though the right of binding them by a legislature in which they were unrepresented by the enactment of the 17th Amendment was never clearly understood. That respect and affection produced a partiality in favor of everything that became Constitutional; then began their preference of Federalism and American Capitalism; through the original intent of the Constitution, the States submitted to restraints on of foreign trade, which they had little desire to use; and the international lead we so long enjoyed in commerce, to the great enriching of our merchants and skilled craftsmen.
The mistaken policies of the 1913 “Progressive Reforms” first disturbed this happy situation with the 16th and 17th Amendments and the institutionalism of the Federal Reserve; but the flame thereby raised was soon extinguished a World War. The old harmony fallaciously restored, with all its appearance of associated advantage to our commerce. The subsequent act of another administration, with the “Square Deal”, which, not content with enforcement of agreements made between businesses and the consumers and workers; it established Administration actions over business such that executive agencies ought to have discretion in picking out which were “good” and which were “bad.” The states and citizenry in general were further indoctrinated into utopianism through “New Deal” Progressivism. This progressivism was reserved (professedly so) as a standing claim and exercise of the right assumed by the Administration and Congress of laying on such duties and taxes for the War effort and rebuilding of society.
Many of the States, after 70 years of subjugation and usurpation by the Federal government, are retracting their agreements by virtue of the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. So far as related to all unfunded mandates and other impacts on commerce and Liberty. This was trumpeted by the present Administration by use of the Supreme Court against the States. States and Citizens Rights under the 9th and 10th Amendments are considered only a decent and equitable measure, showing a willingness to meet the Federal usurpation in every advance towards a reconciliation, and a disposition to a good understanding so prevalent that possibly they might soon have relaxed the obtrusive regulations of the Federal Agencies.
But the system of commissioners of the IRS and other Federal Agencies, officers without end, with armored cars and SWAT Teams for collecting and enforcing those regulations, being continued, and these acting with much indiscretion and rashness (giving great and unnecessary trouble and obstruction to business, commencing unjust and vexatious suits, and harassing commerce in all its branches, while that the Legislatures keep the people in a constant state of irritation by instructions which appeared to have no other end than the gratifying their private greed and resentments), occasioned a persevering adherence to Administrative resolutions in that particular of climate change being a national security issue. That the States Citizenry are reeling from Agenda 21 and socialism with Truth should be a lesson to Legislators not to risk through a feeling of irritation or resentment resulting from a slight, esp. to their pride, the obstructing of any one branch of commerce as done through the “bail outs”; since the course and connection of general business has been and may be disturbed to a degree impossible to be foreseen or imagined. For it appears that the States finding their humble petitions to have even the “National Health Care Act” repealed were rejected and treated with contempt, and that the produce of the mandated health insurance purchases was applied to the rewarding with undeserved salaries and pensions every one of new appointees and special interests, the cost of the “Health Care Reform Act” itself became more odious, and the present Administrations resolution to force it more vigorous and obstinate.
The Chinese, the Middle Eastern Oil Barons, and Internationalist UN oligarchies took this opportunity thus offered them by our imprudence, and began to enforce socialist policies through soft treaties (Executive Orders) implemented in Federal Agencies. At first this was something difficult; but at length, as all business is improved through agency rule making practices, it became easy. Instead of those true efforts made by the Founders of this nation to ensure forthright American commerce, the Federal authorities leave all the US boarders open to illegal transactions of people and goods let alone drugs that destroy the morals of the country. Worse yet, the Federal bureaucracies are so large and encroaching that they have mortgaged our children’s futures to communist enemies; especially when the Federal Administration restraining authority attacking the States was by all the inhabitants deemed unconstitutional, the Citizenry cry out for patriotism. The Federal regulation have force the great American acts of commerce to be debtors of internationalist and institute the United Nations authority over the States Citizenry through the likes of:
- The International Covenant on Environment and Development
- Agenda 21
- Law of the Sea Treaty
- The Earth Charter
- May 1974, Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order
And hundreds of UN agreements and treaties instituted through Federal agencies subverting the sovereignty of the States and their Citizens.
It is supposed that millions of Americans look at all the commercial goods that had been produced at home, now made in communist China, Vietnam and other third world nations. This market, that in the twenty years which have run on since GATT, NAFTA and numerous Free Trade Agreements have negatively impacted the revenues that would have been paid into the coffers of the national treasury, we have wantonly lost to foreigners. Meanwhile it is said the duties have so diminished that the whole remittance of the last year amounted to no more than the pitiful, for the expense of some hundred thousands, in armed ships and soldiers, to support the foreign economies.
Hence the States are fully aware of the crisis in trade and the theft of their Citizens resources by a Federal government usurping the Constitutional framework intended for the national well being and the enjoyment of fair trade through international commerce without indenturing the future generations of Citizens to the evils of socialism.
The modernization of: Natural Rights of the Colonists as Men.
The Report of the Committee of Correspondence to the Boston Town Meeting
Nov. 20, 1772
May 6, 2012 – The Report of the Citizens from Various States United to the Federal Government in a condition of Usurping the Covenant with the Sates, that Being the Constitution as Intended in 1787.
I. Natural Rights of the Citizen
Among the natural rights of the Citizens are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature.
All men have a right to remain in a state of nature as long as they please; and in case of intolerable oppression, civil or religious, to leave the society they belong to, and enter into another. When men enter into society, it is by voluntary consent; and they have a right to demand and insist upon the performance of such conditions and previous limitations as form an equitable original compact.
Every natural right not expressly given up, or, from the nature of a social compact, necessarily ceded, remains.
All positive and civil laws should conform, as far as possible, to the law of natural reason and equity. As neither reason requires nor religion permits the contrary, every man living in or out of a state of civil society has a right peaceably and quietly to worship God according to the dictates of his conscience.
“Just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty,” in matters spiritual and temporal, is a thing that all men are clearly entitled to by the eternal and immutable laws of God and nature, as well as by the law of nations and all well grounded municipal laws, which must have their foundation in the former.
In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced, and, both by precept and example, inculcated on mankind. And it is now generally agreed among Christians that this spirit of toleration, in the fullest extent consistent with the being of civil society, is the chief characteristical mark of the Church. Insomuch that Mr. Locke has asserted and proved, beyond the possibility of contradiction on any solid ground, that such toleration ought to be extended to all whose doctrines are not subversive of society. The only sects which he thinks ought to be, and which by all wise laws are excluded from such toleration, are those who teach doctrines subversive of the civil government under which they live. In this 21st Century, The Islamist that adheres to sharia are excluded by reason of such doctrines as these, that infidels may be deposed, and those that they call infidels may be destroyed without mercy; besides their recognizing the Imam in so absolute a manner, in subversion of government, by introducing, as far as possible into the states under whose protection they enjoy life, liberty, and property, that solecism in politics, imperium in imperio (an order within an order)[i], leading directly to the worst anarchy and confusion, civil discord, war, and bloodshed.
The natural liberty of man, by entering into society, is abridged or restrained, so far only as is necessary for the great end of society, the best good of the whole. In the state of nature every man is, under God, judge and sole judge of his own rights and of the injuries done him. By entering into society he agrees to an arbiter or indifferent judge between him and his neighbors; but he no more renounces his original right than by taking a cause out of the ordinary course of law, and leaving the decision to referees or indifferent arbitrators.
In the last case, he must pay the referees for time and trouble. He should also be willing to pay his just quota for the support of government, the law, and the constitution; the end of which is to furnish indifferent and impartial judges in all cases that may happen, whether civil, ecclesiastical, marine, or military. The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule. In the state of nature men may, as the patriarchs did, employ hired servants for the defense of their lives, liberties, and property; and they should pay them reasonable wages. Government was instituted for the purposes of common defense, and those who hold the reins of government have an equitable, natural right to an honorable support from the same principle that ” the laborer is worthy of his hire.” But then the same community, which they serve, ought to be the assessors of their pay. Governors, the elected, have no right to seek and take what they please; by this, instead of being content with the station assigned them, that of honorable servants of the society, they would soon become absolute masters, despots, and tyrants. Hence, as a private man has a right to say what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a community to determine what they will give and grant of their substance for the administration of public affairs. And, in both cases, more are ready to offer their service at the proposed and stipulated price than are able and willing to perform their duty.
In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defense of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
II. The Rights of the Citizens as Christians
These may be best understood by reading and carefully studying the institutes of the great Law Giver and Head of the Christian Church, which are to be found clearly written and promulgated in the New Testament.
By the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, every State reserved the right of the Citizen, was guaranteed, his natural right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. And, by the Constitutions of the Various States, it is granted, ordained, and established (that is, declared as an original right) that there shall be liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all Christians, inhabiting, or which shall inhabit or be resident within, a State or Territory in the United States. Historically established before the US Constitution, the Magna Charta itself is in substance but a constrained declaration or proclamation and promulgation in the name of the King, Lords, and Commons, of the sense the latter had of their original, inherent, indefeasible natural rights, as also those of free citizens equally perdurable with the other. That great author, that great jurist, and even that court writer, Mr. Justice Blackstone, holds that this recognition was justly obtained of King John, sword in hand. And peradventure (perhaps), the US Constitution must be one day, sword in hand, again rescued and preserved from total destruction and oblivion.
III. The Historical Rights of the Citizens as Derived from History
A commonwealth or state is a body politic, or civil society of men, united together to promote their mutual safety and prosperity by means of their union. The absolute rights of Citizens and all freemen, in or out of civil society, are principally personal security, personal liberty, and private property. All persons born in the United States are, by the laws of God and nature and by the common law of the Constitution, exclusive of all charters historically, well entitled, and by acts of the Congress are declared to be entitled, to all the natural, essential, inherent, and inseparable rights, liberties, and privileges of Citizenship. Among those rights are the following, which no man, or body of men, consistently with their own rights as men and citizens, or members of society, can for themselves give up or take away from others.
First, “The first fundamental, positive law of all commonwealths or states is the establishing the legislative power. As the first fundamental natural law, also, which is to govern even the legislative power itself, is the preservation of the society.”
Secondly, The Legislative has no right to absolute, arbitrary power over the lives and fortunes of the people; nor can mortals assume a prerogative not only too high for men, but for angels, and therefore reserved for the exercise of the Deity alone.
“The Legislative cannot justly assume to itself a power to rule by extempore arbitrary decrees; but it is bound to see that justice is dispensed, and that the rights of the Citizens be decided by promulgated, standing, and known laws, and authorized independent judges”; that is, independent, as far as possible, of the Elected and people. “There should be one rule of justice for rich and poor, for the favorite in legislatures, and the countryman at the plough.”
Thirdly, The legislatie power cannot justly take from any man any part of his property, without his consent in person or by his representative.
These are some of the first principles of natural law and justice, and the great barriers of all free states and of the Constitution in particular. It is utterly irreconcilable to these principles and to many other fundamental maxims of the common law, common sense, and reason that a Federal legislative body, Administration or Federal agency, should have a right at pleasure to give and grant the property of the Citizens. (That the Citizens are well entitled to all the essential rights, liberties, and privileges of men and freemen is manifest not only from the historical Colony charters in general, but acts of the British Parliament and the US Constitution.) Historically significant is: The statute of the 13th of Geo. 2, C. 7, naturalizes even foreigners after seven years’ residence and The words of the original Massachusetts charter are these: “And further, our will and pleasure is, and we do hereby for us, our heirs, and successors, grant, establish, and ordain, that all and every of the subjects of us, our heirs, and successors, which shall go to, and inhabit within our said Province or Territory, and every of their children, which shall happen to be born there or on the seas in going thither or returning from thence, shall have and enjoy all liberties and immunities of free and natural subjects within any of the dominions of us, our heirs, and successors, to all intents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever as if they and every one of them were born within this our realm of England.”
Now what liberty can there be where property is taken away without consent? Can it be said with any color of truth and justice, that this continent of three thousand miles in breadth, and North to South of sixteen hundred miles, in which, however, it is supposed there are three-hundred millions of people, has the least voice, vote, or influence in the US Congress? Have they all together any more weight or power to return a single member to that Congress who have not inadvertently, but deliberately, assumed a power to dispose of their lives, liberties, and properties, than to choose an Emperor of China? Had the Citizens a true Constitutionally mindful legislator to return as members to the House and the State their original Constitutional means of choosing Senators, it would only be beneficial; as, from their local situation, circumstances and the 17th Amendment, it is impossible they should ever be truly and properly represented there. The inhabitants of this country, are numerous, diverse in nationality yet if born or legally naturalized – Citizens; yet it is absurdly expected by the promoters of the present measures of internationalism under the United Nations that these, with their posterity to all generations, should be returned to slavery under socialism, while their property shall be disposed of by a international body in New York City, and who cannot be supposed to have the least care or concern for their real interest; those internationalist have not only no natural care for the interest of the US Citizen or the States of America, but must be in effect bribed against it with the taking of the wealth of the Citizenry, as every burden they lay on the Citizens is so much saved or gained to themselves. Until now, many of the Citizens have been free from housing and real estate debacle; but if the breath of the continued Federal debt and international payments to the United Nations programs can originate an act for taking away all our money, our lands will go next, while we are trodden in the dirt. The Citizens have been branded with the odious names of traitors and rebels only for complaining of their grievances. How long such treatment will or ought to be borne is submitted.
[i] 1. A group of people who owe utmost fealty to their leader(s), subordinating the interests of the larger group to the authority of the internal group’s leader(s).
2. A “fifth column” organization operating against the organization within which they seemingly reside.
Samuel Adams Returns Blog 
Leave a comment