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He argues that the primary purpose of government, and hence of the Constitution, is the people's happiness, and therefore only a government that promotes the people's happiness is legitimate, writing, "Were the plan of the Convention adverse to the public happiness, my voice would be, reject the plan. Were the Union itself inconsistent with the ...
The Fifth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution declare that governments cannot deprive any person of "life, liberty, or property" without due process of law. Also, Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads, "Everyone has the right to life, liberty, and security of person".
The Massachusetts Constitution, chiefly authored by John Adams in 1780, contains in its Declaration of Rights the wording: "All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, essential, and unalienable rights; among which may be reckoned the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, possessing, and ...
"Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!", a famous excerpt from the "Second Reply to Hayne" speech given by Senator Daniel Webster during the Nullification Crisis. The full speech is generally regarded as the most eloquent ever delivered in Congress. The slogan itself would later become the state motto for North Dakota.
Bentham's famous formulation of utilitarianism is known as the greatest-happiness principle. It holds that one must always act so as to produce the greatest aggregate happiness among all sentient beings, within reason. In a similar vein, Mill's method of determining the best utility is that a moral agent, when given the choice between two or ...
Writing in defense of the Constitution in March 1788, [11] Adams referred to "a single sovereign assembly, each member…only accountable to his constituents; and the majority of members who have been of one party" as a "tyranny of the majority", attempting to highlight the need instead for "a mixed government, consisting of three branches".
The 1949 Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, the federal constitution, contains both entrenched, un-amendable clauses protecting human and natural rights, as well as a clause in its Article 20 (since 1968) recognizing the right of the people to resist unconstitutional tyranny, if all other measures have failed:
The author acknowledges the anti-constitution argument, from Montesquieu, that only small republics can resist tyranny. He counters that Montesquieu's vision of a small republic is not applicable to the American states, as splitting them into smaller commonwealths would cause them to war with one another or necessitate that they are governed ...