WHY THE FOUNDERS WERE SO DISMISSIVE OF LOCKE AND CO:

It is never out of season to recall James Wilson's line that the purpose of the Constitution was not to invent new rights "by a human establishment," but to secure and enlarge the rights we already have by nature. In radical contrast, the celebrated William Blackstone said in his Commentaries on the Laws of England that when we enter civil society, we give up the unrestricted set of rights we had in the State of Nature, including the "liberty to do mischief." We exchange them for a more diminished set of rights under civil society--call them "civil rights" but they are rendered more secure by the advent of a government that can enforce them. To which Wilson responded, "Is it part of natural liberty to do mischief to anyone?" When did we ever have, as Lincoln would say, a "right to do a wrong"? The laws that restrained us from raping and murdering deprived us of nothing we ever had a "right" to do. And so when the question was asked, What rights do we give up in entering into this government?, the answer tendered by the Federalists was, "None." As Hamilton said in Federalist no. 84, "Here ... the people surrender nothing."

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