Right of Revolution

Benjamin Martin: May I sit with you?
Charlotte Selton: It's a free country. Or at least it will be.
--The Patriot

People are born with natural rights to their lives, liberty, and property. When free people form a government, they do not do so to give their freedoms away. Rather, they do so to preserve their freedoms (as stated in the preamble of the Constitution, "to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity").

Should the government act to disenfranchise people of their natural rights, then, as Jefferson wrote, "it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it" in favor of new forms more likely to effect the people's "Safety and Happiness."

This is what is known as the right of revolution. The right to "throw off" an unjust government is a necessary attribute of individual sovereignty that serves as the ultimate guarantee of all other rights.

The right to revolution is the central theme of the Declaration of Independence. It is the ultimate expression of liberty, of the sovereign individual.