Tennessee's Declaration of Rights: Power Belongs to the People

A declaration before a government

Tennessee's constitution begins, before it creates a single office, with a Declaration of Rights of 36 sections. The order is deliberate: the people's rights come first, and the government that follows exists to protect them. Article XI, Section 16 adds that the Declaration "shall never be violated on any pretense whatever" and that everything in it "is excepted out of the General powers of government."

The current constitution was ratified in 1870, but much of Article I carries forward, often nearly word for word, the Declaration of Rights (Article XI) of Tennessee's first constitution of 1796. The Secretary of State notes that most of the 1796 rights provisions were drawn from the North Carolina and Pennsylvania constitutions, and that, according to historian J. G. M. Ramsey, Thomas Jefferson described the 1796 constitution as the "least imperfect and most republican of the state constitutions" (Tennessee Secretary of State).

Sovereignty of the people (Sections 1 and 2)

Section 1 states that "all power is inherent in the people," that free governments are founded on the people's authority "and instituted for their peace, safety, and happiness," and that the people have "an unalienable and indefeasible right to alter, reform, or abolish the government." It echoes the Declaration of Independence, which grounds government in the consent of the governed and affirms the people's right to alter or abolish a government that becomes destructive of its ends.

Section 2 goes further than most constitutions: because government exists for the common benefit, "the doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power and oppression is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind."

Freedom of conscience (Sections 3 and 4)

Section 3 protects "a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience." No one may be forced to attend or support a place of worship, no human authority may "control or interfere with the rights of conscience," and the law may give "no preference" to any religious establishment. Section 4 bars any "political or religious test" for public office other than the oath to support the two constitutions. (Article IX, Section 2 still says that no one "who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments" may hold civil office, but the U.S. Supreme Court held in Torcaso v. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488 (1961), that religious tests for state office violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments, so that clause cannot be enforced.)

Notice that Section 3 calls freedom of worship a "natural and indefeasible right." In the natural-rights tradition of the founding era, which Christian Vote USA shares, such rights are understood as coming from the Creator and as recognized, not created, by the state.

Free and equal elections (Section 5)

"The elections shall be free and equal." The right of suffrage may be denied only "upon a conviction by a jury of some infamous crime, previously ascertained and declared by law, and judgment thereon by court of competent jurisdiction." Lesson 3 covers voting in detail.

What it means for you

When a bill in Nashville touches worship, conscience, or how elections are run, these sections are the first measuring stick. Christian Vote USA's constitutional analyses cite them by section so you can read the text for yourself.