We need to say just a few things about the Founders’ use of the word entitle. The Declaration of Independence declares,
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 Laws of Nature and of 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.
The meaning of the word entitle as the Founders used it in this context is a far cry from the notion so often employed when people use the term today. Frequently today, the word is used to convey the idea of laying a claim to or having a right to something the government offers or “provides” — and this is the primary, if not the only, emphasis.
We must remember that the men who authorized the Declaration and the severing of political ties from Great Britain the Declaration affirmed looked to “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as the basis for the recognition to which the new nation would be entitled. The thirteen colonies now were becoming the thirteen states and a new country — The United States of America. That country, under God’s laws, would hold a just claim to be seen by its mother country and all the other nations on the earth as “separate and equal,” not inferior. Put slightly differently, the new nation would have the right to “assume” a “separate and equal” position or “station” among the countries of the world.
This entitlement has a parallel in the “unalienable rights” to which the Declaration soon would refer. Another important point is that both the rights and the recognition or respect that God grants both individuals and nations cannot be separated from responsibilities that also are God-given. The Declaration mentions one of those responsibilities immediately: “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they [the people severing ties they have had with one nation to form another] should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
Later we will explore the meaning and the nature of the rights the Founders upheld in America’s “birth certificate.” We will see that the God-given rights inherently demand responsibilities, both of citizens and the government.
For now, notice that the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence were not referring at all to government entitlements, but to rights granted under “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”
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Copyright © 2020 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.