Does the Federal Government have a right to take your property?

An individual asked Paul the following question:

"Does the Government have the right to confiscate your property and all your possessions just because they think they have probable cause and the right to do so ?"

Paul then answered the question, but asked me to clarify using the Constitution. Here is my response.

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I was asked to clarify Constitutionally the answer to your question. I would suggest that we need first to look at the Declaration of Independence. It clearly states that all people have a right to their life, liberty and the fruits of their labor. This is part of what they considered the "Natural Law" that governs the universe. One of our founders' great inspirations was the enlightenment philosopher, John Locke, who wrote:

"...every man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined it to something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men. For this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to..."

His basic point was that man injects part of his life and liberty into achieving certain ends, which are his property. To put it another way, you take some of the time of your life and of your own decision serve your fellow man through providing goods or services, and what you get in return is property. That property is the a tangible product of the mixing of your life and liberty, and to rob someone of their property is then to rob them of part of their life and liberty. This natural law precedes all and is above all human governments, thus it is their responsibility to uphold it. Out of all of our founders, Thomas Jefferson most completely upheld these natural property rights by abolishing all federal taxes, taxation being an unlawful (even for governments!) plundering of individuals.

With that in mind, our founders added the 4th and 5th amendments into the Constitution. These were compromises with natural law which allowed for some government theft of private property, but set strict limits through both procedure and extent. The 4th amendment says, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." This allows for government seizure of private property, but only within stict procedural limits including warrants that describe the specific objects to be seized and reasons for seizure of the objects. Therefore, the federal government could not lawfully take all of a person's property without a warrant listing every single object that the individual owns! Second, the 5th amendment says that an individual may not "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." So if the government does take a person's private property, it is required to give just compensation.

But as always happens with government, you give them a little power and they twist it to be a lot of power. Thus has happened with the 4th and 5th amendments. They were meant as limits to the power of federal seizures but instead have been used as a license for federal seizures.

I know this is a somewhat longer response than you were expecting, but I hope you enjoyed it nevertheless. It's time we put more Thomas Jeffersons in power... if any still exist.