A Petition for Redress of Grievances

To: S.C. Legislature

A Petition for Redress of Grievances

We the people of South Carolina petition the South Carolina Legislatureto approve and declare the following proposed amendment to the South CarolinaConstitution, whereby the inalienable nature of our rights will be plainlydecreed as unalterable irreversible.

Be it resolved that we the people of South Carolina hereby declare andaffirm that the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and property (or the pursuit of happiness) set forth in the Declaration of Independence and theFifth Amendment (Bill of Rights) to the Constitution are fundamental rightswhich were derived antecedent to the existence of the state (as manifest in both the United States federal government and the State of South Carolina). As such, the state does not grant rights to life, liberty, or property. Onthe contrary, the primary reason that government is formed is to protect the rights to life, liberty, and property, and no South Carolinian or Americanholds his fundamental rights at the pleasure of the state.

Furthermore, we the people of South Carolina declare and affirm in particular that:All human beings are equal sharers in the right to life, and that the state may not abridge the right to life of any particular human being (or class of human beings) "without due process of law" and subsequent conviction of a capital offense;All human beings are equal sharers in the right to liberty, and that thestate may not forcibly enslave, conscript, or incarcerate a human being"without due process of law" and subsequent conviction of a crime;All human beings are equal sharers in the right to hold and enjoy property, so long as their pursuit of happiness does not infringe upon the rights of other human beings, and the state may not take private property "without due process of law" or take it "for public use, withoutjust compensation". Such public uses include highways, dams, bridges, government office buildings, military installations, and similar publicprojects. Other uses such as increasing local tax revenues, clearing urbanblight, removing church buildings, promoting urban development, andsimilar proactive "public interest" or "public welfare" schemes are not contemplated in the phrase "for public use". The phrase "just compensation" refers to market value based on comparable properties, and would not preclude the government from paying relocation expenses.

With steadfast determination,