History Of Methodist Reform, Volume I - Media Sabda Org

METHODIST REFORM
Edward J. Drinkhouse, M.D., D.D.
APPENDIX I
SUMMARY
DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
EXPLANATORY OF THE REASONS AND PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT
REV. HENRY B. BASCOM, AUTHOR. 1880
Article 1st. God, as the common Father of mankind, has created all men free and equal, and the
proper equality and social freedom of the great brotherhood of the human race, in view of the gifts
and grants of the Creator, are to be inferred from all his dispensations to men. Every man by the
charter of his creation, is the equal of his contemporaries; the essential rights of every generation are
the same. Man as the child of God's creation, continues man immutably, under all circumstances;
and the rights of ancestry are those of posterity. Man has claims which it becomes his duty to assert,
in right of his existence, such as the indefeasible right of thinking and acting for himself, when
thought and action do not infringe the right of another, as they never will, when truth and justice are
made the basis of human intercourse. These rights, common to the great family of man, cannot be
abolished by concession, statute, precedent, or positive institution and when wrested or withheld
from the multitude of mankind, by their rulers, may be reclaimed by the people, whenever they see
proper to do it.
Art. 2d. Man was created for society, his natural rights are adapted to the social state, and under
every form of society, constitute properly, the foundation of his civil rights. When man becomes a
member of civil society, he submits to a modification of some of his natural rights, but he never
does, he never can, relinquish them. He concedes the exercise of these rights, for his own and the
general good, but does not, cannot, cast them off. His rights receive a new direction, but do not
terminate; and that government which deprives man of rights, justly claimed in virtue of his creation,
and interwoven with the constitution of his nature, and the interests of society, denies to him the gifts
of his Creator, and must be unjust. God can be the author of no government, contravening the
wisdom of his arrangements in the creation of men.
Art. 3d. In every community there is a power, which receives the denomination of sovereignty,
a power not subject to control, and that controls all subordinate powers in the government. Now
whether this power be in the hands of the many, or a few, it is indubitably certain, that those
members only of the community are free, in whom the sovereign power resides. The power of a
community, is essential to its freedom, and if this power be confined to a few, freedom is necessarily
confined to the same number. All just government must be founded upon the nature of man, and
should consult alike the natural rights, civil wants, and moral interests of his being. All rightful
authority is founded in power and law; all just power is founded in right, and as one man's natural
right to the character of lawgiver, is to all intents, as good as another's, it follows, that all legitimate
law must have its origin in the expressed will of the many.