He was personally opposed to slavery, but supported your right to buy slaves.

This was the position of Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas, who lost his bid for president

to Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

Douglas believed it was the right of each state to determine whether they would enslave

blacks or not.

How did Douglas reach this evil position?

Well, Douglas had assumed the premises of positive law, which suggests that rights come

from government.

If Southern states did not count slaves as bearers of rights, that was the end of it.

But assumed premises, especially when undetected, can destroy a nation.

Today I'm going to argue that assumed premises are killing us as a republic.

Our nation, with little fanfare and almost without notice, has assumed a premise completely

at odds with the American founding, namely that fundamental rights are a creation of the

state.

As Hadley Arks explains, many Americans and especially members of the political class

have come to talk themselves out of the premises of the American founders in Lincoln.

Like Douglas, many Americans today have unconsciously absorbed premises at odds with the philosophy

of this republic.

And what is that philosophy?

Well, it's the philosophy that makes America truly exceptional.

Our founders contrasted natural rights with merely legal or positive ones.

Now, natural rights are those rights you possess simply because you are human.

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