Life, Liberty, and Estate ... er, Pursuit of Happiness
By MAS HASHIMOTO
This Natural Life Philosophy by John Locke, an English philosopher (1632-1704), is a relatively new concept in history. Locke conceptualized that everyone was entitled to "Life, Liberty, Estate (property)" as natural and inalienable rights:
Life: everyone is entitled to live.
Liberty: everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it doesn't conflict with the first right.
Estate (property): everyone is entitled to own all they create or gain through gift or trade so long as it doesn't conflict with the first two rights.
Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, inserted it: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Jefferson substituted “Estate/Property” with “Pursuit of Happiness” for “Property” was too materialistic. One’s happiness may be obtaining property, perhaps more slaves.
Interestingly, Jefferson ended the document with another series: “we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.” What last thought was to be the most important? Honor. In a series, the least important is placed in the middle, “Liberty/Fortune,” and with the most important at the very end,“ Property/Honor.”
Centuries before the concept that government was a contract between the governed and those governing, there was the “Divine Right of Kings,” which postulates that a monarch receives his power directly from God and that he cannot be questioned. The monarch has absolute authority over people’s lives and is only accountable to God. A close, mutually beneficial understanding and relationship has existed between the monarchy and the Church. It is not known exactly where or when this came into practice.
One historic reference: ”Then Jesus said to them, ‘Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.’ And they were utterly amazed at him.”
Fast forward to June 15, 1215 at Runnymede when King John of England was forced to sign the Magna Carta, ”Great Charter,” by which he was to share authority with the property-owning barons and with the promise of protecting the Church.
The Magna Carta was arguably the most significant early influence on the extensive historical process that led to the rule of constitutional law today in the English-speaking world. The power shifted slightly to the barons who were the land owners, and who governed over their peasant farmers and artisans.
And, what about the human and civil rights of the people? What about them?
A milestone in the development of human rights was the Petition of Right, produced in 1628 by the English Parliament and sent to Stuart King Charles I as a statement of civil liberties. Refusal by Parliament to finance the king’s unpopular foreign policy had caused his government to exact forced loans and to quarter troops in subjects’ houses as an economy measure. Arbitrary arrest and imprisonment for opposing these policies had produced in Parliament a violent hostility to the unpopular Charles I who was executed for treason in 1649.
The Petition of Right, initiated by Sir Edward Coke, was based upon earlier statutes and charters and asserted four principles:
1. No taxes may be levied without consent of Parliament.
2 No subject may be imprisoned without cause shown (reaffirmation of the right of habeas corpus).
3 No soldiers may be quartered upon the citizenry.
4 Martial law may not be used in time of peace.
One early basic belief was that all wealth came from the land - property. Another was that wealth came from labor. In today’s modern e-world, there may be other beliefs practiced.
When the Europeans landed in North America, they told the indigenous people, Native Americans, “Get off my land. I have the deed to this land. It was given to me by the king.”
The native American asked, “What’s a deed? No one owns the land. The land belongs to everyone in the community.”
Property represented wealth and well-being. It, along with life and liberty, was written into the 1789 US Constitution in two places.
Those delegates who presented the new Constitution were of the elite, upper class. They were the “barons” of this country, determined to protect their property.
Only free, white men with property could vote for the members of elite class – electors - from which the President would be selected. Thus, an undemocratic method of selecting the President was established, the Electoral College.
In 1870, citizens could not be denied the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude just because one was formerly a slave - via the 15th Amendment to the US Constitution. If one three letter word, sex, had been included, women too would have had the right to vote then. Women had to wait another 50 years, to 1920, before they were allowed to vote via the 19th Amendment. In 1924, the native Americans were allowed to vote, and in 1971 via the 26th Amendment, those 18-year-old and older, could now vote.
Today, in 2022, via the new “Jim Crow” laws of at least 19 states, restrictions have been placed against minorities and others from participating in the most vital responsibility of the American citizen, the right to vote.
Looking back, what if John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were invited to the Constitutional Convention to present their thoughts and beliefs? Why were they absent? John Adams, representing the United States, was in England, and Thomas Jefferson was our ambassador to France.
In France, a new motto prevailed at the time of the French Revolution - Liberté, égalité, fraternité - one of liberty, equality, brotherhood.
What if a brotherhood of humanity prevailed in the Constitution instead of property? Would the United States of America have remained a racist nation?
Liberty represents freedom, a word with several meanings. It can stand for being able to make one’s own decisions freely and having the opportunity to express one’s own beliefs without fear. To be physically and/or legally free is different for it involves being free from confinement, servitude or forced labor.
Equality can stand for being equal under the law and so to maintain a sameness of rules, status, rights, respect, opportunities and privileges, that must be applied to all.
Fraternity is a word associated with the idea of community, which is a body of people that share a common interest or purpose. It is also associated with brother/sisterhood and having/working/fitting/producing something together as a group. Also, a fraternity can be recognized as a group viewed as a forming a distinct segment of togetherness.
While in the US Constitution “Life, liberty, and property” are protected in two places, ours were not protected.
Eighty years ago on February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 denied our rights to life, liberty and property. We were imprisoned without charges or trial. My older brother Noriyuki, at age 14, was killed in the Salinas Assembly Center. True, it was a baseball accident. Others lost their lives while in camp to disease, suicide, shot by guards, and other causes. We lost our liberty for over three years, imprisoned in 69 different facilities, ten of which were major concentration camps. We lost not only our hard-earned property but our “pursuit of happiness” was denied.
Someone once counted over 140 violations of our rights when we were evicted, forcibly removed, from our homes and incarcerated.
An early attempt at reparations proved grossly inadequate. The Japanese American Evacuation Claims Act of July 2, 1948, provided meager compensation to Japanese Americans during World War II for losses of real and personal property. A claim of $1,000 would net only $100. Approximately 26,550 claims totaling $142,000 were paid.
An investigation by the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians in 1983 concluded that the causes were “racism, war hysteria, and the failure of political leadership.” In this series, which is the least important?
Led by the chair Grant Ujifusa, and Grayce Uyehara of the Japanese American Citizens League’s lobbying arm, the Legislative Education Committee (JACL/LEC), Senators Daniel Inouye and Sparky Matsunaga, Congressmen Norman Mineta and Robert Matsui, and with the help of Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress, and so many supporting individuals, the Civil Liberties Act of August 10, 1988 restored some dignity with redress thorough an apology, and reparations - $20,000 - to those incarcerated.
However, there remains the issue of the Japanese Latin Americans (JLA) who were kidnapped and brought here to the United States, (Crystal City, Texas) by the US Government in exchange for American diplomats and prisoners of war held by the Japanese. The US Government could not exchange a Nisei for another American citizen. Some JLA refused to accept their reparations of $5,000. Check their website if you wish to help or learn more about their Campaign for Justice.
They, too, were denied the protection to “life, liberty and property.”
Postscript: A warning - emerging is another threat of racism, war hysteria through fake news on cable news and social media, and the failure of political leadership nation-wide with the passage of “Jim Crow” laws in many states, not limited just to the South.
This November 2022’s mid-term election will determine the future of these United States. Please vote, and make sure everyone in your family and friends vote too. Thank you!