Genealogy of American Rights

Abstract

The rights enjoyed by Americans today are a cultural norm dating back to an ancient conception of the individuals' perspective against the world they find themselves in. They are part of an inheritance of a notion of liberty as self-evident that various cultures have passed down to today. From olden times to the present, the lived-experience of the individuals of a particular society were shaped by the latitude and freedoms either granted to them by a ruling power, or described as self-evident, as if it came from nature.

As society went from being a mindless maze that one was found in, to an explainable, predictable, and stable phenomena, the contours of what rights are became sharper and increasingly bound tighter by the traditions and customs of the legal and/or religious doctrines that ran parallel with them. At a certain point in this civic evolution, there was an expectation that certain behaviors, such as free speech, the right to practice one's religion or practice no religion, or the right to own weapons, were to be protected or granted by the ruling powers. In a similar vein, there existed an overall freedom to be left alone unless certain conditions were met, and resistance to the system that became morally acceptable behavior if these conditions were violated.

The subject this paper addresses is the following question: at the time of the founding of the Constitution, what was the status quo of the norms of political society, what was used as justification for the creation of a federal government that was different from Confederation, and what was the nature of the transaction of liberties and rights that were offered by the people in ratifying the new Constitution?