Law of Consent (1 of 1)

Lesson 5 The Dower to define the significance of your OWN words is the ORIGIN of your right to contract: The status that you voluntarily associate with yourself under a specific compact or written law is the method by which you exercise the unalienable right to contract and associate. The First Amendment guarantees us a right of freedom from compelled association and, by implication, freedom from being connected with any statutory status that implies either legal or political association with any specific government: Just as there is freedom to speak, to associate, and to believe, so also there is freedom not to speak, associate, or believe "The right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking [on a government tax return, and in violation of the Fifth Amendment when coerced, for instance! are complementary components of the broader concept of 'individual freedom of mind." Wooley v. Maynard, [430 U.S. 703] (1977). Freedom of conscience dictates that no individual may be forced to espouse ideological causes with which he disagrees: "[Alt the heart of the First Amendment is the notion that the individual should be free to believe as he will, and that in a free society one's beliefs should be shaped by his mind and by his conscience rather than coerced by the State [through illegal enforcement of the revenue laws]." Abood v. Detroit Board of Education f43I U.S. 209](1977) Freedom from compelled association is a vital component of freedom of expression. Indeed, freedom from compelled association illustrates the significance of the liberty or personal autonomy model of the First Amendment. As a general constitutional principle, it is for the individual and not for the state to choose one's associations and to define the persona which he holds out to the world. [First Amendment Law Barron-Dienes, West Publishing, ISBN 0-314-22677-X, pp. 266-2671 Independent of these views, there are many considerations which lead to the conclusion that the power to impair contracts. by direct action to that end, does not exist with the general government. In the first place s one of the objects of the Constitution, expressed in its preamble, was the establishment of justice, and what that meant in its relations to contracts is not left, as was hotly said b; the late Chief Justice, in Hepburn v. Griswold, to inference or conjecture. As he observes, at the time the Constitution was undergoing discussion in the convention, the Congress of the Confederation was engaged in framing the ordinance for the government of the Northwestern Territory, in which certain articles of compact were established between the people of the original States and the people of the Territory, for the purpose, as expressed in the instrument, of extending the fundamental principles of civil and religious liberty, upon which the States, their laws and constitutions, were erected. By that ordinance it was declared, that, in the just preservation of rights and property. 'no law ought ever to be made, or have force in the said Territory, that shall, in any manner, interfere with or affect private contracts or engagements bona fide and without fraud previously filmed.' The same provision, adds the Chief Justice, found more condensed expression in the prohibition upon the States against impairing the obligation of contracts, which has ever been recognized as an efficient safeguard against injustice; and though the prohibition is not applied in terms to the government of the United States, he expressed the opinion, speaking for himself and the majority of the court at the time, that it was clear• 'that those who framed and those who adopted the Constitution intended that the spirit of this prohibition should pervade the entire body of legislation, and that the justice which the Constitution was ordained to establish was not thought by them to be compatible with legislation of an opposite tendency.' 8 Wall. 623. [99 U.S. 700, 765/ Similar• views are found expressed in the opinions of other judges of this court. In Calder v. Bull, which was here in 1798. Mr. Justice Chase said, that there were acts which the Federal and State legislatures could not do without exceeding their authority. and among them he mentioned a law which punished a citizen for an innocent act: a law that destroyed or impaired the lawful private contracts of citizens: a law that made a man bulge in his men case: and a law that took the property from A. and save it to B. 'It is against all reason and iustice.' he added. 'for a people to intrust a legislature with such powers, and therefore it cannot be presumed that they have done it. They mav command what is right and prohibit what is wrong; but they cannot change innocence into guilt or punish innocence as a crime, or violate the right of an antecedent lawful private contract, or the right of private property. To maintain that a Federal or State legislature possesses such powers if they had not been expressly restrained, would, in my opinion. be a political heresy altogether inadmissible in all free republican governments.' 3 Dalt 388. Likewise, the U.S. Constitution at Article 1, Section 10 implicitly grants us a right to be free from being forced to contract with or enter into a franchise with any government. This implies that once again, you cannot lawfully be compelled to assume any specific status or obligation associated with any status under any government civil law.

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Requirement for Consent