We have here a brilliantly concise statement of what historians call “Real” (or “Radical”) Whig ideology, a libertarian political philosophy commonly associated with John Locke. But before I delve into this philosophy I want to comment on a point of historical trivia.

The Declaration we know today refers to “unalienable” rights, but Jefferson used the word “inalienable.” Jefferson did not make this change, nor does the change appear to have been made by Congress while it was considering the draft submitted by the Committee of Five.

So who made this change, and why? We don’t know. “Unalienable” first appears in John Dunlap’s initial printing of the Declaration (July 5), which was inserted in the rough Journal of Congress. It also appears in the corrected Journal and in the engrossed parchment version, which was signed by delegates on August 2. (Contrary to the later recollections of Jefferson and Adams, no signing occurred on July 4).

Carl Becker suggested that John Adams may have been responsible for the change: “Adams was one of the committee which supervised the printing of the text adopted by Congress, and it may have been at his suggestion that the change was made in printing.” Julian P. Boyd (editor of the massive Princeton edition of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson) proposed a different theory: “This alteration may possibly have been made by the printer [John Dunlap] rather than at the suggestion of Congress.”

Fortunately for my purpose here, this minor mystery is of no consequence. Both “inalienable” and “unalienable” were used throughout the eighteenth century; they were merely variant spellings of the same word. (“Unalienable” appears to have been more common.) Far more significant is why Jefferson felt the need to specify inalienable rights at all, rather than referring simply to natural rights, inherent rights, and so forth.

Inalienable (or unalienable) rights were regarded as fundamental corollaries of man’s nature, especially his reason and volition, so these rights could never be surrendered or transferred to another person (including a government), even with the agent’s consent. A man can no more transfer his inalienable rights than he can transfer his moral agency, his ability to reason, and so forth. This means that inalienable rights could never have been transferred to government in a social contract, so no government can properly claim jurisdiction over them.

This argument from inalienable rights was important because of an ambiguity in traditional social contract theory. The social contract was more of a theoretical construct than a historical reality, so disagreements inevitably raged over which rights had been delegated to government and which rights had not. After all, no legitimate complaint can be made about the violation of a right if a government has gained proper jurisdiction over that right in the social contract. Government, for instance, cannot function without money, so the transfer of a minimal amount of property to government, collected in the form of taxes, was commonly seen as the prime example of a right that has been alienated in a social contract.

According to this approach, legitimate disagreements may occur between subjects and rulers when alienable rights are involved, but no such disputes are justified over the question of inalienable rights. Government cannot claim any jurisdiction over such rights, because inalienable rights, by their very nature, could never have been transferred to government in the first place. Therefore, there can be no excuse for the violation of inalienable rights. This is the crucial bright‐​line test that enables us to distinguish the incidental or well‐​intentioned violation of rights, which even just governments may occasionally commit, from the deliberate and inexcusable violations of a tyrannical government.

We thus see why Jefferson focused on inalienable rights in his effort to fasten the charge of tyranny on the British government. The violation of inalienable rights was a defining characteristic of a tyrannical government, and only against such a government is revolution justified.

Although this basic argument can be found in John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government, Locke never actually used the word “inalienable” (or “unalienable”) in regard to rights. We do find this terminology, however, in an early book by the Scottish (and Lockean) philosopher Francis Hutcheson.

In An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), Hutcheson discusses an “important Difference of Rights, according as they are Alienable or Unalienable.” In order for a right to be alienable, it must “be possible for us in Fact to transfer our Right.” Some rights, such as “the Right of private judgment,” cannot be transferred because they flow directly from our nature as moral agents, and we cannot transfer our faculties of volition and judgment to other people, as we might transfer a piece of external property. In “the same way,” Hutcheson continues, “a direct Right over our Lives or Limbs, is not alienable to any Person; so that he might at Pleasure put us to death, or maim us.”

Hutcheson clearly states the political implications when inalienable rights are violated by government: