...language for the introduction to the Declaration of Independence. In Sections One and Two Mason writes, That all men are by nature equally free and independent...property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people... This is clearly echoed...

...clauses they inserted language designed to exclude slaves. Thus, the entire provision of Section 1 read: That all men are by nature equally free and independent,...property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. The phrase "when they enter into a state of society" was understood to limit the language of...

...the Virginia Declaration of Rights, adopted a month before the Declaration of Independence, provides: That all men are by nature equally free and independent,...property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.61 Other constitutions contain a different type of general equality provision intended to prohibit...

...individual rights. For example, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 declared in its first article that "all men are by nature equally free and independent...their posterity, namely, the enjoyment of life and l1berty, w1th the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness...

...uncovered the source of all these rights ascertained: nature. Natural law not only conferred to the people "certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter...by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity". It also proved "[t]hat all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people".30 With no...

...free and independent and have certain inherent rights' (sec. 1). Zu den Menschenrechten gehören 'the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring...property and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety'. Wie entsprechend in der Unabhängigkeitserklärung enthalten, heißt es in sec. 2: 'That all...

...Rights, of which they can not by any Compact, deprive or divest their Posterity; among which are the Enjoyment of Life and Liberty, with the Means of acquiring...Property, and pursuing and obtaining Happiness and Safety." Mason's second article declared that magistrates derived their powers from the people, and...

...Pendleton's suggestion, the new first item in the Declaration of Rights as adopted by the convention began, "That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when 3. Brown, Good Wives, 215, 219; St. George Tucker, Dissertation on Slavery, 70; Patterson, Slavery...

...rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of government. SUCTION 1 . esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives...an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. safety. SEC. 2. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; that magistrates...

...rights do pertain to them and their posterity, as the basis and foundation of Government. Section 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent...property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety. Section 2. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the People; that magistrates...