vi-zJ ' 
 
 « I 
 
 l^^^ 
 
 
 f 
 
Virginia Declaration of Rights and 
 Cardinal Bellarmine 
 
 By 
 
 GAILLARD HUNT 
 
 Riprint from The Catholic Historical Review. Vol. Ill (1917), pp. 276-289 
 
J 
 
 C^it.J 
 
 'A 
 
 
h; 
 
 THE VIRGINIA DECLARATION OF RIGHTS 
 AND CARDINAL BELLARMINE 
 
 The object of this essay is to discover what was the immediate 
 source of that part of the Declaration of Rights of Virginia and 
 of the Declaration of Independence which proclaimed the natural 
 equality of man and that the right of governing is derived from 
 the people. These two pronouncements have had tremendous 
 consequences, for the theory of the American State rests upon 
 them, and they have come to be the foundation stone of govern- 
 ment in nearly all the nations of the modern world. 
 
 In framing the Virginia Declaration the English Bill of 
 Rights was the natural model, because of the resemblance of 
 the events immediately preceding the birth of the one document 
 to those which preceded the birth of the other. The English 
 parliament which in 1689 declared that James II had forfeited 
 the crown, and which prescribed the conditions upon which 
 William of Orange was accepted as King, was the prototype of the 
 Virginia Convention which put George III off the American 
 throne, and proclaimed the principles upon which a new govern- 
 ment must be founded to be acceptable. In its contents, however, 
 the Virginia document followed the English model only in its 
 less important features, and even in these the resemblance is 
 but partial. The first three Virginia paragraphs saying that all 
 men are by nature equally free and independent; that all power 
 belongs to the people; that government is instituted for the 
 common benefit, and that when it fails to confer common benefit 
 a majority of the people have a right to change it — these funda- 
 mental principles are not in the English Bill at all. Thus, the 
 Virginians used the English model in no spirit of agreement or 
 imitation, for they ignored its most important provisions and 
 went far beyond Its most radical intentions. 
 
 The study of government has always been a favorite occu- 
 pation of higher minds, and the discussion of the problem of 
 how far men may enjoy their freedom and submit to government, 
 what are their rights and duties, and what are the rights and 
 
 1 
 
% GAILLARD HUNT 
 
 duties of those who govern them are as old as mankind itself. 
 In 1776 men were discussing these things and also the theory of 
 government itself. Some of them had decided that it was a 
 contract between the governed and the governors; others believed 
 all power belonged to the people; others were content to trace its 
 origin to the family relation, and others thought that rulers 
 derived their right to rule from the Supreme Ruler of the Universe. 
 In the beginning of the settlement of America these questions 
 were not of practical importance, for pioneers in a wilderness had 
 only problems of personal government to deal with. Questions 
 of liberty did not obtrude themselves upon men who could go 
 at will through a boundless country and make their homes 
 wherever they pleased. The Jamestown court book, which 
 begins in 1622 and is the earliest government record of the 
 English occupation, shows this, for the chief function of the 
 government was to punish small offences against law and order, 
 and wrongs committed by one man against another. A hundred 
 years later, however, governmental conditions had become more 
 complex, the country having passed the earliest pioneer stage, 
 having increased greatly in population and having become 
 valuable to the nation which owned it. When that nation began 
 to restrain its American subjects, to exercise authority over 
 them and to tax them, neglected theories of government were 
 revived and they began to study them with a practical object 
 in view. They felt that they were ill-used, and read and discussed 
 so as to give form to their grievances. 
 
 Ready at hand was the classic literature of Athens and Rome 
 which all educated men knew fairly well. The civilization of 
 those states was understood and entered into the daily thought 
 of the time. When the Americans came to create governments 
 of their own they adapted to their use some of the institutions 
 and nomenclature of the classical period. It would be beyond 
 the scope of this article, however, to try to find the classical spring 
 of the thoughts which were in the mind of George Mason when 
 he wrote the Declaration of Rights and of Thomas Jefferson 
 when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, nor is it neces- 
 sary to do so, for their immediate inspiration came from more 
 modern sources. 
 
 Several authors must be cleared from the field before we 
 
 ?\- 
 
VIRGINIA DECLARATION OF RIGHTS 3 
 
 examine those who really participated in forming the doctrines 
 under consideration. Montesquieu, Rousseau and James Berg, 
 whose names are often connected with them, really did not 
 influence them. The Spirit of the Laws was studied in America, 
 but it did not present the theory of government in the way the 
 Revolutionists were seeking to present it. It was an analysis 
 of the various forms of government; they were seeking for a 
 statement of the basis of the form they were determined to 
 have. 
 
 Rousseau's writings were less widely known than Montes- 
 quieu's. It is probable that Jefferson knew them, because his 
 mental appetite was omnivorous; but George Mason did not 
 know French and there is no reason to suppose that he ever 
 read the Contrat Social or the Discours sur Vorigine de VinegalitS 
 parmi les hommes. Rousseau's writings had not obtained currency 
 in Virginia in 1776. 
 
 James Berg wrote seventy -five years after Montesquieu. 
 His book. Political Disquisitions, or An Enquiry into public 
 Errors, Defects, and Abuses of the British Government, ap- 
 peared only in part in 1775, rather too late to have rendered 
 service in May, 1776, even if it had discussed general principles 
 which it did not do. Berg denounced the evils which had arisen 
 in England, in the hope of "restoring the constitution and saving 
 the state." He defended the colonies in their controversy with 
 the parent country. The American edition of his book was 
 published in Philadelphia under the encouragement of a number 
 of prominent Americans, many of them members of the Conti- 
 nental Congress, among them George Washington and Thomas 
 Jefferson. Jefferson praised the book, but it did not help him 
 when he drew up the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 To go on to those who had a somewhat closer relationship to 
 the Declaration, who were in fact the natural precursors of 
 those who had a real influence in forming it, we come upon 
 Thomas Hobbes and Richard Hooker, who paved the way which 
 Algernon Sidney and John Locke walked with so much confidence 
 many years later. A hundred years before Rousseau, Hobbes 
 expounded Rousseau's doctrine of government. Hobbes' chief 
 book. Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common- 
 wealth Ecclesiastical and Civil, was published in London in 1651. 
 
4 GAILLARD HUNT 
 
 It was a scientific discussion of the natural man and the artificial 
 aggregation of men (the Leviathan) called the Commonwealth. 
 He defined a commonwealth thus: 
 
 A commonwealth is said to be instituted, when a multitude of men 
 do agree, and covenant, every one, that to whatsoever man or assembly 
 of men shall be given by the major part, the right to present the person 
 of them all (that is to say, to be their representative): Every one, as 
 well he that voted for it, as he that voted against it, shall authorize all 
 the actions and judgments of that man or assembly of men in the same 
 manner, as if they were his own, to the end, to live peaceably amongst 
 themselves, and be protected against other men. 
 
 From this institution of a commonwealth are derived all the rights 
 and faculties of him or them on whom sovereign power is conferred by 
 the consent of the people assembled. ^ 
 
 He argued against the right of rebellion because it broke the 
 covenant made by the subject with the sovereign. 
 
 The Treatise on Ecclesiastical Polity of Richard Hooker was 
 published in 1594-1597. He said: 
 
 The lawful Power of making laws to command whole Political 
 Societies of men, belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, 
 that for any Prince or Potentate of what kind soever upon Earth to 
 exercise the same of himself, and not either by express Commission 
 immediately and Personally received from God, or else by authority 
 derived the first from their Consent upon whose Persons they impose 
 Laws; it is no better than meer Tj'ranny. Laws they are not therefore 
 which Public approbation hath not made so. But approbation not 
 only give, who personally declare their assent by voyce, signe, or act, 
 but also when others do it in their names by right originally at least 
 derived from them.* 
 
 Under the hands of Algernon Sidney and John Locke this 
 doctrine was advanced to a system of popular government; and 
 those two writers must now be brought to the reader's particular 
 attention, for they received a great deal of attention from the 
 fathers of the republic. It cannot be said that they are now 
 wholly forgotten. They are alluded to, however, oftener than 
 they are read, and no apology is needed for quoting from them to 
 a modern reader. 
 
 Algernon Sidney was a hero to the Americans of 1776. His 
 romantic life and tragic death held the public attention, and his 
 
 * Leviathan, Edition of 1651, p. 88. 
 
 * The Laws of Ecclesiastical Politie. Book 1, Sec. 9, p. 28, Edition of 1622. 
 
/ 
 
 VIRGINIA DECLARATION OF RIGHTS 5 
 
 writings were eagerly read. It was nearly a hundred years since 
 he had been beheaded for asserting the right of the people to 
 govern, but the interest in him was still fresh. A new edition 
 of the account of his trial and of his disquisition on government 
 had appeared in 1763, only thirteen years before the American 
 revolt. Sidney had been charged, among other things, with 
 having written seditious libels, the worst being, as the arraign- 
 ment recited, the following: 
 
 The power originally in the people of England is delegated unto the 
 parliament. He (the most serene lord, Charles II now King of England 
 meaning) is subject unto the law of God, as he is a man; to the people 
 that makes him a king inasmuch as he is a king: the law sets a measure 
 unto that subjection, and the parliament judges of the particular cases 
 thereupon arising. He must be content to submit his interest unto theirs, 
 since he is no more than any one of them in any other respect than that 
 he is, by the consent of all, raised above any other. If he doth not like 
 this condition, he may renounce the crown; but if he receives it upon 
 that condition (as all majestrates do the power they receive) and swear 
 to perform it, he must expect that the performance will be exacted, or 
 revenge taken by those that he hath betrayed. ^ 
 
 At the trial the Government showed that when Sidney was 
 arrested, a treatise alleged to be in his handwriting was found in 
 his study, which was designed to persuade the people of England 
 "that it is lawful, nay that they have a right to set aside their 
 prince, in case it appear to them that he hath broken the trust laid 
 upon him by the people." "Then he falls to reasoning," said the 
 attorney general, "and uses great reasoning in the case, that 
 all the power of the prince is originally in the people; and applies 
 that discourse, that the power of the king was derived from the 
 people, upon trust; and they had already declared the king had 
 invaded their rights, and therefore he comes to argue, that they 
 might resume that original power they had conferred."^ 
 
 Sidney insisted that the Government had not proved that the 
 writings produced were his. "But," he added, "my lord, it is a 
 polemical discourse; it seems to be an answer to Filmer, which 
 is not calculated for any particular government in the world; it 
 (Filmer's book) goes only upon these general principles, that 
 
 * Page 108 of the supplement to the Edition of 1763. 
 «/d., pp. 115, 116. 
 
6 GAILLARD HUNT 
 
 according to the universal law of God and nature there is but one 
 government in the world, and that is entire and absolute." ^ 
 
 The trial was dramatic and the Lord Chief Justice, Jeffries, 
 who presided, was at his worst. The jury was packed, Sidney 
 was refused a copy of his indictment, and overt acts were accepted 
 as proved by the testimony of one perjured witness. The Chief 
 Justice interrupted Sidney when he attempted to speak in his 
 own behalf and showed a savage determination to kill him. 
 When he sentenced him, Sidney uttered a short prayer that his 
 country might not suffer in atonement for his blood, but, if he 
 must be avenged, that the weight of punishment might fall upon 
 those who had maliciously prosecuted him for righteousness' 
 sake. To this, the Chief Justice replied : 
 
 I pray God work in you a temper fit to go into the other world, 
 for I see you are not fit for this. 
 
 And Sidney said: 
 
 My lord, feel my pulse (holding out his hand), and see if I am dis- 
 ordered. I bless God, I never was in better temper, than I am now.* 
 
 He was executed on December 7, 1683. That day he gave to 
 the Sheriffs a paper in which he recounted the unfairness of his 
 trial and said of the writings used against him: 
 
 They plainly appear to relate to a large treatise written long since 
 in answer to Filmer's book, which by all intelligent men is thought to be 
 grounded in wicked principles, equally pernicious to magistrates and 
 people. 
 
 He gave the scope of the treatise: 
 
 . . . And I am persuaded to believe that God had left nations 
 to the liberty of setting up such governments as best pleases themselves. 
 
 That magistrates were set up for the good of nations, not nations for 
 the honour and glory of magistrates. 
 
 That those laws were to be observed, and the oaths taken by them-, 
 , having the force of a contract between magistrates and people, could not 
 be violated without danger of dissolving the whole fabric. 
 
 That usurpation could give no right; and the most dangerous of all 
 enemies to Kings were they, who raising their power to an exorbitant 
 height, allowed to usurpers all the rights belonging to it.' 
 
 Bishop Burnet said of Sidney: "He had studied the history 
 
 6 Id., pp. 134, 135. 
 
 *Id., 168. 
 
 - Id., pp. .37, 38, of the Memoirs. 
 
VIRGINIA DECLARATION OF RIGHTS 7 
 
 of government in all its branches, beyond any man I ever knew/* 
 The author of the memoir which preceded his Discourses on 
 Government said: "In short, it is one of the noblest books that 
 ever the mind of man produced; and we cannot wish a greater or 
 more extensive blessing to the world, than than it may be every- 
 where read, and its principles universally received and propa- 
 gated." 
 
 The copy of this noble book which Thomas Jefferson used 
 lies before me — a handsome folio, 497 pages of the Discourses, 
 198 pages of Sidney's letters and the account of this trial, the 
 whole prefaced by 46 pages of the Memoir. This was the 
 edition of 1763, edited by Thomas Hollis, known in England as 
 "the Republican," the great-nephew of Thomas Hollis, the 
 benefactor of Harvard college. The first edition of the book had 
 appeared in 1698. Americans liked to connect Sidney with 
 themselves. They believed (probably erroneously) that he had 
 assisted William Penn in drawing up the enlightened form of 
 government which Penn had given to Pennsylvania in 1682. 
 Children were called Algernon Sidney, newspaper writers used 
 the name as a pen name, gentlemen called their country places 
 Sidney. For many years after the Revolution there still sur- 
 vived evidence of the deep impression he had made upon the 
 American mind. There was an American edition of his Discourses 
 published in Philadelphia as late as 1804. A copy of the book 
 was in every large library in 1776; every reading man had read 
 it in part or in whole. The opening sentence of the Discourses 
 ran: 
 
 Having lately seen a book, entitled "Patriarcha," written by Sir 
 Robert Filmer, concerning the universal and undistinguished right 
 of all kings, I thought a time of leisure might well be employed in examin- 
 ing his doctrine, and the questions arising from it: which seem so far to 
 concern all mankind, that besides the influence upon our future life, they 
 . may be said to comprehend all that in this world deserves to be cared for. 
 
 In Patriarcha there was a quotation from the Cardinal 
 Bellarmine to the effect that men were created equal, upon which 
 Sidney remarked of Filmer: 
 
 "He absurdly imputes to the school divines that which was 
 taken up by them as a common notion, written in the heart of 
 every man, denied by none, but such as were degenerated into 
 
8 GAILLARD HUNT 
 
 beasts." And again: "Though the schoolmen were corrupt, 
 they were neither stupid nor unlearned; they could not but see 
 that which all men said, nor lay more approved foundations, 
 than that man is naturally free; that he cannot justly be deprived 
 of that liberty without cause;" etc. Of governments: "Those 
 only can be called just which are established by the consent of 
 nations."* Of democracy: "And of all governments, democracy, 
 in which every man's liberty is least restrained because every 
 man hath an equal part, would certainly prove to be the most 
 just, rational and natural."^ At the same time he insisted that 
 a democracy never had existed and was not possible except for a 
 small town. He advocated a popular mixed government. Of 
 popular right over government he said: "We say in general 'He 
 that institutes, may also abrogate;' most especially when the 
 institution is not only by but for himself. If the multitude 
 therefore do institute the multitude may abrogate; and they 
 themselves, or those who succeed in the same right, can only 
 be fit judges of the performance of the ends of the institution." i° 
 
 There is much discussion of the Old Testament and the support 
 which Filmer sought to derive from it for his theory that govern- 
 ment comes from the power of the fathers over the children. 
 
 Following after Sidney and as widely read, although not so 
 popular nor so interesting, was John Locke. His essays were in 
 all libraries, but they derived no contributing interest from 
 his personal career. When his Two Treatises on Government 
 appeared in 1690 he incurred no danger from their publication, 
 for the Revolution of 1688 had put a king on the throne who 
 derived his right to rule from the consent of the multitude. 
 Locke's doctrines were as acceptable to William of Orange as 
 Filmer's would have been to James I or as they were to Charles I. 
 Like Sidney, Locke wrote in reply to Filmer. He described his 
 two treatises thus : 
 
 "In the former the false principles and foundation of Sir 
 Robert Filmer and his followers are detected and overthrown: 
 the latter is an essay concerning the true origin, extent and end 
 
 8 Page 155. 
 • Page 152. 
 " Page 15. 
 
VIRGINIA DECLARATION OF RIGHTS 9 
 
 of civil government." He says of Filmer: "His system lies 
 
 m a little compass, it is no more but this: 
 
 " That all government is absolute monarchy/ 
 
 "And the ground he builds on is this, That no man is born 
 
 free. *^ 
 
 A few extracts will show Locke's philosophy: 
 
 To understand political power right, and derive it from its origin 
 we must consider what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state 
 of perfect freedom to order their actions and dispose of their possessions 
 and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature 
 without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man. 
 
 A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is 
 reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more 
 evident, than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously 
 born to all the same advantages of nature, and the use of the same 
 faculties, should be equal one amongst another without subordination 
 or subjection: unless the lord and master of them all should by any 
 manifest declaration of his will, set one above another, and confer on him 
 by an evident and clear appointment, an undoubted right to dominion 
 and sovereignity.' "^^ 
 
 Men being, as has been said, by nature all free, equal, and inde-* 
 pendent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the 
 pohtical power of another, without his own consent.^* 
 
 These aphorisms he repeated often and made the basis of his 
 essay. 
 
 Now let us see who was this Filmer of whom Sidney and 
 Locke had so much to say, Sidney's reply to him having brought 
 his head to the block. In his day he was popular and had many 
 readers and followers. He preached a simple creed— that Kings 
 rule by divme right and that the unthinking devotion and obedi- 
 ence of their subjects belongs to them by God's ordinance. Any 
 man could understand that doctrine and many men had cheer- 
 fully laid down their lives in support of it. It was age old-as 
 old as the opposing doctrine that all governing power comes from 
 the multitude. Macaulay says that Filmer formed into a system 
 the theories which became prominent under James I. Filmer's 
 writings d id, in fact, follow those of James. The King's Defense 
 
 " Works, edition of 18»4, Vol. iv, p. 213. 
 " Id., p. 340. 
 " Id., p. 394. 
 
10 GAILLARD HUNT 
 
 of True Monarchie might well be a preface to Patriarcha. So 
 may the King's treatise on witches, Daemonology, be read in 
 connection with Filmer's *' Advertisement of the Jurymen of 
 England touching Witches." There was still another point of 
 resemblance between the two authors — both of them essayed to 
 reply to the Cardinal Bellarmine, James in defense of the test 
 oath which Catholics would not take, and Filmer in defense of 
 the divine right of kings, a doctrine which Bellarmine denied. 
 
 Sir Robert Filmer, Bart., like Algernon Sidney, but in a less 
 tragic degree, suffered persecution because of his opinions on 
 government. During the civil wars in England he adhered to 
 Charles I, and, it was said, had been imprisoned in 1644, while his 
 house was plundered ten times. 
 
 A few of his writings appeared anonymously during his life- 
 time, but the most important of them was not published till 
 1680, twenty-seven years after his death. The full title was, 
 Patriarcha or the Natural Power of Kings, by the Learned Sir 
 Robert Filmer, Baronet. The argument was that the doctrine 
 of the natural liberty of man was new, plausible and dangerous, 
 that the royal authority began before the flood with the patriarchs 
 from whom all kings were descended; that there was no example 
 in Scripture of a people choosing its King; that popular govern- 
 ment was more bloody than tyranny; that the king being ap- 
 pointed by God, his subjects could not judge nor correct him, as 
 he was above human laws. He said : "It appears little less than 
 a paradox which Bellarmine and others afllrm of the freedom of 
 the multitude to choose what rulers they please." 
 / Filmer's contemporaries generally agreed with him. John 
 ■ Locke and Sidney sought to disprove his theories by examples 
 
 , and utterances taken from the source whence Filmer drew most 
 
 \of his support — the Bible. Filmer found the origin of govern- 
 ment in the family and fatherhood; Hobbes and the rest found 
 
 I it in a contract between the governed and the governors, and here 
 
 \Filmer was right. 
 
 One of those whom Filmer answered was Philip Hunton. He 
 had written a Treatise on Monarchy in 1643 in which he said: 
 "God does not bind any people to this or that form of government 
 till they by their own act bind themselves." Filmer declared 
 that they never bound themselves. He said that the earliest gov- 
 
VIRGINIA DECLARATION OF RIGHTS 11 
 
 ernments had been absolute monarchies, and he was right again. 
 
 Robert Francis Romulus Bellarmine, to whom Filmer replied, 
 was one of the most famous churchmen and statesmen of his 
 day. He is still well known to Catholic clergymen, and to the 
 Protestant clergy in a less degree, but to laymen his is not a 
 familiar name. He was born at Montepulciano in 1542 and died 
 in 1621. He was a Jesuit priest, teacher of the humanities at 
 Florence and Mondovi, a professor and preacher at Louvain, 
 where Protestants as well as Catholics went to hear him. He was 
 consecrated a cardinal in 1599. In 1576 he began to issue his 
 controversial writings. They made a sensation in England, and, 
 as he was the champion of papacy, vindications of Protestantism 
 often took the form of answers to him. His works crossed the 
 Atlantic. There was a copy in the library at Princeton where 
 x/James Madison, a member of the Committee which framed the 
 Virginia Declaration of Rights, had graduated. Probably he 
 had read it, for at this period of his life he read everything he 
 could lay his handfe on, and was deeply versed in religious 
 controversy. 
 
 There were copies of some of his books in Virginia. Old 
 Protestant ministers remember that when they studied divinity 
 at the Episcopal High School near Alexandria they heard Bellar- 
 mine quoted. Several members of the committee which drew 
 up the Declaration of Rights had been educated in England — 
 Thomas Ludwell Lee probably, and John Blair certainly. It 
 would have been difficult for them to escape some acquaintance 
 with Bellarmine while they were studying in England. Eleven 
 of the twenty-three members of the committee had gone to 
 William and Mary College, where religious controversy raged. 
 They, too, must have heard of the Italian controversialist from 
 the answers which had been made to him. In 1722 there had 
 been published in London a free translation by Thomas Foxton 
 of Bellarmine's Joys of the Blessed: Being a Practical Discourse 
 Concerning the Eternal Happiness of the Saints in Heaven, 
 Bellarmine was not unpopular in England even among those 
 who were most inimical to his faith. 
 
 It is Bellarmine's remarks on earthly government, however, 
 not his writings on things celestial, that concern us here, and 
 Filmer stated them fairly. Taking a number of the Cardinal's 
 
12 GAILLARD HUNT 
 
 aphorisms to be found here and there in his writings but chiefly 
 in De Potestate Pontificis (see, for instance, Lil 1, Cap. vi, p. 257) 
 he gives them thus on the fourth page of Patriarchal and I repro- 
 duce his italics and capitals. 
 
 To make evident the Grounds of this Question, about the Natural 
 Liberty of Mankind, I will lay down some passages of Cardinal Bellarmine, 
 that may best unfold the State of this controversie. Secular or Civil 
 Power (saith he) is instituted by men; It is in the -people, unless they bestow 
 it on a Prince. This Power is immediately in the whole Multitude, as in 
 the subject of it; for this Power is in the Divine Law, but the Divine Law 
 hath given this power to no particular man. If the Positive Law he taken 
 away, there is left no Reason why amongst a Multitude (who are Equal) one 
 rather than another should hear Rule over the Rest. Power is given by the 
 multitude to one man, or to more, by the same Law of Nature; for the Common- 
 wealth cannot exercise this Power, therefore it is bound to bestow it upon 
 some One man or some Few. It depends upon the Consent of the multitude 
 to ordain over themselves a King Counsel or other Magistrates; and if there 
 be a lawful cause the multitude may change the Kingdom into an Aristocracy 
 or Democracy. Thus far Bellarmine; in which passages are comprised 
 the strength of all that I have read or heard produced for the Nat- 
 ural Liberty of the Subject. 
 
 But Bellarmine's doctrine was epitomized by Filmer on the 
 opening page of Patriarcha. The first sentence of the book reads : 
 
 Since the time that School-Divinity began to flourish there hath been 
 a common opinion maintained, as well by Divines, as by divers other 
 Learned Men, which affirms. 
 
 Mankind is naturally endowed and born with Freedom from all Subjec- 
 tion, and at liberty to choose what Form of Government it please: And that 
 i the Power which any one Man hath over others, was at first bestowed according 
 '^ to the descretion of the Multitude. 
 
 This Tenet was first hatched in the Schools, and hath been foitered 
 by all succeeding Papists for good Divinity. The Divines also of the 
 Reformed Churches have entertained it, and the Common People 
 everywhere tenderly embrace it, as being most plausible to Flesh and 
 Blood, for that it prodigally distributes a Portion of Liberty to the 
 meanest of the Multitude who magnifie Liberty, as if the height of 
 Human Felicity were only to be found in it, never remembering that the 
 desire of Liberty was the first cause of the Fall of Adam." 
 
 Filmer was better known to laymen in America than Bellar- 
 mine was. Students of government like George Mason and 
 Thomas Jefferson could not have missed him. There was his 
 name staring at them in the opening sentences of Sidney and 
 Locke and scattered through the later pages. Mason and 
 
VIRGINIA DECLARATION OF RIGHTS 13 
 
 Jefferson must have had the curiosity to look into the author 
 whom their favorites abused so lustily and so continuously. 
 Unhappily, the catalogue of Mason's library has not survived, 
 but Jefferson's books are still kept together in the Library of 
 Congress and among them is Patriarcha. I find it also in inven- 
 tories of other libraries in Virginia, of the revolutionary period. 
 Yet nothing which Filmer wrote himself had any influence upon 
 Mason and Jefferson. He was a dead author and his doctrine 
 had no interest for men who were convinced of the equal rights 
 of men; but the quotation he gave from Bellarmine and his 
 epitome of Bellarmine's doctrine seems to have lodged in their 
 memory, to reappear in a new form in the Declarations which 
 they wrote. Neither in Sidney nor in Locke nor in the writings 
 of any other author with whom they were familiar is there as 
 complete an epitome of the doctrine they announced. 
 
 Soon after the committee met to frame the Virginia Declara- 
 tion of Right, George Mason wrote out ten paragraphs of the 
 Declaration and presented it to his colleagues. They added 
 three more and the whole was handed in to the Convention where 
 it underwent unimportant minor alterations, except as to the 
 clause relating to religious liberty, which the Convention changed 
 by making it a declaration for religious liberty instead of religious 
 toleration. The first four paragraphs of Mason's committee 
 draft are as follows: 
 
 A Declaration of Rights, made by the Representatives of the good 
 people of Virginia, assembled in full Convention, and reconmiended to 
 posterity as the Basis and Foundation of their Government. 
 
 That all men are born equally free and independent and have certain 
 inherent natural Rights, of which they cannot, by any Compact, deprive 
 or divest their posterity; among which are the Enjoyment of Life and 
 Liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and 
 pursuing and obtaining Happiness and Safety. 
 
 That Power is, by God and nature, vested in, and consequently 
 derived from the People; that Magistrates are their Trustees and Servants, 
 and at all times amenable to them. 
 
 That Government is, or ought to be instituted for the common 
 Benefit and Security of the People, nation, or Community. Of ail the 
 various modes and Forms of Government that is best, which is Capable 
 of producing the greatest Degree of Happiness and safety, and is most 
 effectually secured against the Danger of Mal-administration. And 
 that whenever any Government shall be found inadequate, or contrary 
 to these purposes, a Majority of the Community hath an indubitable. 
 
14 GAILLARD HUNT 
 
 inalienable and indefeasible Right to reform, alter or abolish it, in such 
 manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal." 
 
 These clauses came from the Convention in the following form (italics marking 
 the variations) : 
 
 A declaration of rights made by the representatives of the good people of Virginia, 
 assembled in full and free convention; which rights do pertain to them and their pos- 
 terity, as the basis and foundation of government. 
 
 Sec. 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have 
 certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of Society, they cannot, 
 by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and 
 liberty, with the means of acquiring property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness 
 and safety. 
 
 Sec. 2. That all power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; 
 that magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them. 
 
 Sec. 3. That government is, or ought to be, instituted for the common benefit, 
 protection, and security of the people, nation or community; of all the various modes 
 and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest 
 degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the Danger 
 of mal-administration; and that, when any government shall be found inadequate or 
 contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, 
 inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter and abolish it, in such manner 
 as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal. 
 
 And the Declaration of Independence says: 
 
 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created 
 equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable 
 Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. 
 That to secure these rights. Governments are instituted among men, 
 deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That 
 whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, 
 it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new 
 Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its 
 powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their 
 Safety and Happiness. 
 
 Were Mason and Jefferson conscious of their debt to Bellar- 
 mine, or did they use Filmer's presentation of his doctrine 
 without knowing that they were doing so? Did the Americans 
 reaHze that they were staking their lives, their fortunes and their 
 sacred honor in support of a theory of government which had 
 come down to them as announced by a Catholic priest? We 
 cannot answer these questions, but it should be a satisfaction to 
 Catholics to know that the fundamental pronouncements upon 
 which was built the greatest of modern revolutions, found their 
 best support in the writings of a Prince of the Church. 
 
 Gaillard Hunt, 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 1* Mason Papers, Library of Congress. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 011 801 586 1 
 
 # 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 011 801 586 1