T.F.M

Phil 310

Fall 2012

Invalidity of Government Laws

When 56 of the founding fathers of this great nation came together on July 4th, 1774 to sign off on The Declaration of Independence, their intent was to protect the “unalienable Rights”1 of every man and woman of citizen to this nation. The foundation of the fundamental principles and just laws of the nation, The Constitution of the United States, to which to this very day all 50 states in the union bear by, holds that these “unalienable Rights”2 which consist of the right to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”3 was meant to ensure that every man and woman, regardless of color, age, or creed, be protected under the supreme law of the nation.

Though the Constitution was written and ratified in 1787 at the Constitution Convention to apply to all American citizens, it didn’t initially pertain to all groups of people. For instance, women born in the U.S. before and after the ratification of the Constitution were not allowed to vote in elections until after the Nineteenth Amendment was passed and ratified in 1920 even though the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted in 1868, stipulates that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States…are citizens of the United States”4 and have the privileges of U.S. citizenship which included voting. The Fourteenth Amendment was originally written and ratified with the beneficiaries being primarily “males”5 which was one of the significant issues in the fight for suffrage for women in the U.S. There are certain circumstances, such as the one described above, which make social contracts, or government laws, unsound to some. Ot...

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