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Laws of Nature Quotations

John Dickinson
Categories: God, Laws of Nature, Rights
Date: 1776
Our liberties do not come from charters; for these are only the declaration of pre-existing rights. They do not depend on parchments or seals; but come from the King of Kings and the Lord of all the earth.
James Wilson Of the Law of Nature
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: 1804
The moral precepts delivered in the sacred oracles form a part of the law of nature, are of the same origin and of the same obligation, operating universally and perpetually . . .
Samuel Adams letter to the Legislature of Massachusetts
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: January 17, 1794
In the supposed state of nature, all men are equally bound by the laws of nature, or to speak more properly, the laws of the Creator.

Theophilus Parsons The Essex Result The Essex Result
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: May 12, 1778
We have duties, for the discharge of which we are accountable to our Creator and benefactor, which no human power can cancel. What those duties are, is determinable by right reason, which may be, and is called, a well informed conscience. What this conscience dictates as our duty, is so; and that power which assumes a control over it, is an usurper; for no power can be pleaded to justify the control, as any consent in this case is void.
George Washington First Inaugural Address
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: April 30, 1789
The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.

Alexander Hamilton The Farmer Refuted
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: February 23, 1775
To grant that there is a supreme intelligence who rules the world and has established laws to regulate the actions of his creatures; and still to assert that man, in a state of nature, may be considered as perfectly free from all restraints of law and government, appears to a common understanding altogether irreconcilable. Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed that the deity, from the relations we stand in to himself and to each other, has constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution whatever. This is what is called the law of nature . . . . Upon this law depend the natural rights of mankind: the Supreme Being gave existence to man, together with the means of preserving and beatifying that existence. He endowed him with rational faculties, by the help of which, to discern and pursue such things, as were consistent with his duty and interest, and invested him with an inviolable right to personal liberty, and personal safety . . . . The Sacred Rights of Mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the Hand of the Divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.
The Declaration of Independence The Declaration of Independence
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: July 4, 1776
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Law of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

James Madison Speech to the Virginia Convention
Categories: Human Nature, Laws of Nature, Slavery
Date: December 2, 1829
But the mere circumstance of complexion cannot deprive them of the character of men.
Theophilus Parsons The Essex Result The Essex Result
Categories: Equality, Laws of Nature
Date: 1778
All men are born equally free. The rights they possess at their births are equal, and of the same kind. Some of those rights are alienable, and may be parted with for an equivalent. Others are unalienable and inherent, and of that importance, that no equivalent can be received in exchange. Sometimes we shall mention the surrendering of a power to controul our natural rights, which perhaps is speaking with more precision, than when we use the expression of parting with natural rights - but the same thing is intended. Those rights which are unalienable, and of that importance, are called the rights of conscience. We have duties, for the discharge of which we are accountable to our Creator and benefactor, which no human power can cancel. What those duties are, is determinable by right reason, which may be, and is called, a well informed conscience... What this conscience dictates as our duty, is so; and that power which assumes a controul over it, is an usurper; for no power can be pleaded to justify the control, as any consent in this case is void.
Pennsylvania Constitution Pennsylvania Constitution, Declaration of Rights
Categories: Equality, Laws of Nature, Liberty / Freedom, Rights
Date: 1776
Article 1. All men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent and indefeasible rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing and protecting property and reputation, and of pursuing their own happiness.
John Adams Letter to Thomas Jefferson
Categories: Government, Government - Social Compact, Laws of Nature
Date: June 20, 1815
The question before the human race is, Whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether Priests and Kings shall rule it by fictitious Miracles? Or, in other words, whether authority is originally in the People? Or whether it has descended for 1800 Years in a succession of Popes and Bishops, or brought down from Heaven by the Holy Ghost in the form of a Dove, in a Phial of holy Oil?
Thomas Paine Common Sense
Categories: God, Laws of Nature, Monarchy
Date: 1776
But where says some is the King of America? I'll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal - of Britain.
Samuel West On the Right to Rebel Against Governors
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: May 29, 1776
It is our duty to endeavor always to promote the general good; to do to all as we would be willing to be done by were we in their circumstances; to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before God. These are some of the laws of nature which every man in the world is bound to observe, and which whoever violates exposes himself to the resentment of mankind, the lashes of his own conscience, and the judgment of Heaven. This plainly shows that the highest state of liberty subjects us to the law of nature and the government of God. The most perfect freedom consists in obeying the dictates of right reason, and submitting to natural law. When a man goes beyond or contrary to the law of nature and reason, he becomes the slave of base passions and vile lusts; he introduces confusion and disorder into society, and brings misery and destruction upon himself. This, therefore, cannot be called a state of freedom, but a state of the vilest slavery and the most dreadful bondage. The servants of sin and corruption are subjected to the worst kind of tyranny in the universe. Hence we conclude that where licentiousness begins, liberty ends.
James Wilson of the Law of Nature
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: 1804
The law of nature and the law of revelation are both Divine: they flow, though in different channels, from the same adorable source. It is indeed preposterous to separate them from each other.

Thomas Jefferson Rights of British America
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: 1774
That these are our grievances which we have thus laid before his majesty, with that freedom of language and sentiment which becomes a free people claiming their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.
John Quincy Adams Speech delivered in New York City commemorating the 50th anniversary of Washington's inauguration
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: April 30, 1839
Our political way of life is by the laws of nature and of nature’s God, and of course presupposes the existence of God, the moral ruler of the universe, and a rule of right and wrong, of just and unjust, binding upon man, preceding all institutions of human society and government.
John Dickinson Letters III
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: 1788
We may with reverence say, that our Creator designed men for society, because otherwise they cannot be happy. They cannot be happy without freedom; nor free without security; that is, without the absence of fear; nor thus secure, without society. The conclusion is strictly syllogistic—that man cannot be free without society. Of course, they cannot be equally free without society, which freedom produces the greatest happiness.
John Dickinson Letters of Fabius
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: 1788
We may with reverence say, that our Creator designed men for society, because otherwise they cannot be happy. They cannot be happy without freedom; nor free without security; that is, without the absence of fear; nor thus secure, without society. The conclusion is strictly syllogistic—that man cannot be free without society. Of course, they cannot be equally free without society, which freedom produces the greatest happiness.
William Penn England's Present Interest Considered, with Honour to the Prince, and Safety to the People
Categories: Laws of Nature, Rights
Date: 1675
[T]hose rights and privileges which I call English, and which are the proper birth-right of Englishmen, and may be reduced to these three. I. An ownership, and undisturbed possession: that what they have is rightly theirs, and no body's else. II. A voting of every law that is made, whereby that ownership or propriety may be maintained. III. An influence upon, and a real share in, that judicatory power that must apply every such law; which is the ancient, necessary and laudable use of juries: if not found among the Britons, to be sure practised by the Saxons, and continued through the Normans to this very day . . . . (T)hese have been the ancient and undoubted rights of Englishmen.
James Otis The Rights of the British Colonies
Categories: Laws of Nature, Rights
Date: 1763
Every British Subject born on the continent of America, or in any other of the British dominions, is by the law of God and nature, by the common law, and by act of parliament, (exclusive of all charters from the crown) entitled to all the natural, essential, inherent and inseparable rights of our fellow subjects in Great- Britain.
John Dickinson A Warning to the Colonies (Of the Right to Freedom; and of Traitors)
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: 1766
Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness, as you confess those invaded by the Stamp Act to be…They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives. In short, they are founded on the immutable maxims of reason and justice.
Richard Lee quoted by John Adams, Notes of Debates
Categories: Laws of Nature, Rights
Date: September 8, 1774
The rights are built on a fourfold foundation; on nature, on the British constitution, on charters, and on immemorial usage . . . lay[ing] our rights upon the broadest bottom, the ground of nature.
William Blackstone Commentaries on the Laws of England
Categories: God, Law, Laws of Nature
Date: 1765
THIS law of nature, being co-eval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.
James Otis Rights of the British Colonies
Categories: Human Nature, Laws of Nature, Slavery
Date: 1764
The colonists are by the law of nature freeborn, as indeed all men are, white or black . . . . Does it follow that 'tis right to enslave a man because he is black?
James Wilson Of the Law of Nations (from Lectures on Law)
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: 1791
Nations, as well as men, are taught by the law of nature, gracious in its precepts, to consider their happiness as the great end of their existence. But without existence there can be no happiness: the means, therefore, must be secured, in order to secure the end.
James Madison The Federalist Papers Federalist 43
Categories: Federal Government, Laws of Nature
Date: January 23, 1788
On what principle the confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the states, can be superseded without the unanimous consent of the parties to it? . . . . The . . . question is answered at once by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self- preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and of nature’s God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim.
William Blackstone Of the Study, Nature and Extent of the Laws of England
Categories: God, Law, Laws of Nature, Other Quotes from We Still Hold These Truths
Date: Unknown
Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws.
James Wilson Lectures on Law
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: 1791
The law of nature is immutable; not by the effect of an arbitrary disposition, but because it has its foundation in the nature, constitution, and mutual relations of men and things.
James Wilson Lectures on Law
Categories: Constitution, Laws of Nature
Date: 1791
The law of nature is universal. For it is true, not only that all men are equally subject to the command of their Maker; but it is true also, that the law of nature, having its foundation in the constitution and state of man, has an essential fitness for all mankind, and binds them without distinction.
George Washington First Inaugural Address
Categories: Economy, God, Laws of Nature, Religion and Morality, Virtue
Date: April 30, 1789
There exists in the economy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness . . . we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained.
Charles Merriam A History of American Political Theories
Categories: Laws of Nature, Government - Social Compact
Date: 1903
The present tendency, then, in American political theory is to disregard the once dominant ideas of natural rights and the social contract, although it must be admitted that the political scientists are more agreed upon this point than is the general public. [Progressive]
Charles Merriam A History of American Political Theories
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: 1903
The exigencies of modern industrial and urban life have forced the state to intervene at so many points where an immediate individual interest is difficult to show, that the old doctrine has been given up for the theory that the state acts for the general welfare. It is not admitted that there are no limits of the action of the state, but on the other hand it is fully conceded that there are no natural rights which bar the way. The question is now one of expediency rather than principle. [Progressive]
Ronald Reagan Remarks to the Captive Nations Week Conference, Los Angeles, California
Categories: Laws of Nature, Liberty / Freedom
Date: July 15, 1991
The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of these United States are covenants we have made not only with ourselves, but with all mankind. Our founding documents proclaim to the world that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few. It is the universal right of all God's children.
Ronald Reagan Remarks to National Conference of Christians and Jews.
Categories: Laws of Nature
Date: March 23, 1982
The struggle goes on. To be alive and to be human is to struggle for what is right and against what is not.
Ronald Reagan Inaugural Address
Categories: America, Human Nature, Laws of Nature
Date: January 20, 1981
If we look to the answer as to why for so many years we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on earth, it was because here in this land we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before. Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on earth. The price for this freedom at times has been high, but we have never been unwilling to pay that price.