Civil Rights in American History lecture notes part 1

According to the American Founders, a human being understands “the Laws of Nature and of
Nature’s God” by means of his reason.

Thomas Aquinas defined natural law as the “rational creature’s participation in the eternal law.”

According to Frank Goodnow in his essay “The American Conception of Liberty,” social expediency rather than natural rights.

Substantive rights are derived most directly from the natural law.

As a description of the state of nature, Dr. Portteus [lecturer] references this passage from the Book of Judges: “In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

Procedural rights do not necessarily exist in nature, but they are created as a way to secure natural rights.

In 1848 John C. Calhoun  said that the principles of natural liberty and equality professed in the
Declaration of Independence were “the most false and dangerous of all political errors.”

In response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, Northern states began passing personal liberty laws, which aimed to provide procedural rights to an alleged fugitive slave.

Abraham Lincoln argued that Southern people’s contempt for the slave dealer revealed their recognition of the humanity of slaves.

In Notes on the State of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson argued that slavery provides the slave master and his children a constant education in tyranny.

In an effort to protect slavery, Southern states sanctioned homes to be searched without warrants, the suppression of free speech. and the inspection of mail.

In 1865, Frederick Douglass argued that he is for “immediate, unconditional, and universal” enfranchisement, because without it “liberty is a mockery.”

Dr. Portteus argues that Lincoln’s statement that Americans should proceed “with �rmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right” is an appeal to return to the founding principles of natural equality and liberty.

Source: Civil Rights in American History from Hillsdale.edu.