A Humean reading of the American Constitution

When contemporary constitutional debate discusses first amendment penumbra rights, it indicates natural liberty to "intellectual individualism" that implies civil liberty to association "as a form of expression of opinion." This discussion examines the intellectual foundation of the origins of this liberty to explain its implications to areas of law beyond the first amendment.;It takes as a starting point a concept stated by Thomas Jefferson: noninjurious moral natural right which was defined rather than limited by natural law and indicated inalienable civil liberties that did not sacrifice natural liberty in the formation of government.;This discussion examines a commentary on this concept that is apparent in Hume's legal philosophy and that interprets noninjuriousness in terms of sympathy and related concepts of public interest, institutions, and civil liberty. The definition of these concepts in opposition to what Hume observed to be a reformed definition of a self-established national church with coercive state-like powers that violated prohibition of laws respecting an establishment as well as of laws prohibiting the free exercise of religion is discussed. An apparent theology of reformed dissenters that was at the foundation of church doctrine destructive of public order and peace is examined. This theology emphasized that certainty of one's own salvation was accompanied by uncertainty, anxiety, and pride in opposition to a concept of noninjuriousness. The necessity of autonomous morally valid law that eschewed the difficulties of reformed dissenters to define a selfsustaining logic of morality is discussed. The development of Hume's legal philosophy that took into account the change in the experience of legal authority brought about by this law is emphasized. Significant emphasis is also placed on the change of the reformers' idea of two worlds to the need for a third standard to which both worlds are held.;This discussion is neither concerned with defining an unwritten constitution nor with defining a standard to which the existing constitution should be held, but with defining a natural law grounding to give legitimacy of enforceability of rights and liberties in courts of law by fulfilling certain Humean requirements.