On Wednesday, September 3, 2025, during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) declared that “the notion that rights don't come from laws, and don’t come from the government, but come from the Creator… is extremely troubling.” He equated that belief to what “the Iranian government believes” and implied it sat uneasily with American legal tradition. Yet Kaine’s statement—branding the Founders' most fundamental principle as “troubling”—reveals a staggering disconnect from the Declaration of Independence.
As G.K. Chesterton once observed: “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed. That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence.” Kaine’s words show how far some of our leaders have drifted from that creed.
In 1776, Thomas Jefferson penned the iconic words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” The Founders rooted our liberties not in the whim of statutes or the breath of governments, but in natural law—a moral order independent of earthly authorities. It was precisely because they believed in rights as God-given, immutable, and prior to governmental power that they rejected British tyranny—without this grounding, laws are merely grants, and grants can be revoked.
Kaine’s warning about rights “not coming from laws or governments” is not radical, it’s foundational. This is the very logic the Revolution defended against: that the Crown and Parliament could arbitrarily define or revoke rights, quartering troops during peace, dissolving colonial legislatures, denying trial by jury and taxation without consent—all marked the threat of a regime that believed rights came from rulers rather than nature’s God. These actions, catalogued in the Declaration, were precisely the evidence that rights cannot be left to legislative benevolence. For that benevolence is too often inconstant.
By contrast, Kaine’s position that government serves as the source of rights echoes the very tyranny the Founders rose against. When a state grants rights, it can also take them away. Natural rights, by contrast, are unalienable. They may be protected by law, but they exist outside legal grant. To frame the idea that rights flow from Creator, not Congress, as dangerous, is to embrace the logic of despotism. The creed that Chesterton referenced, implies the check on government legitimacy. When the government fails to protect these God-given rights, it loses its authority.
To be clear: laws and government play a role, but it is to protect rights, not to bestow them. Our Constitution begins with “We the People,” recognizing that authority derives from those who hold rights already. Governments are instituted to guard life, liberty, and property—not to manufacture them. Treating statutes as the source of rights flips America’s constitutional order and is, indeed, deeply troubling.
Senator Kaine is not alone in this error. His confusion reflects a broader shift away from recognizing natural law as the basis for American government—a shift toward legal positivism, where rights are only those the state allows. But this viewpoint neglects the moral conviction of 1776, which still animates the Constitution and Supreme Court precedents like Lochner and Brown where certain liberties were found not in positive law, but inferred from deeper, pre-political principles.
Kaine’s comparison of the Creator-endowed rights doctrine to Iran’s theocracy further distorts the issue. Iran is indeed a theocratic regime that claims divine authority to enforce law under Sharia and suppresses minorities under that religious rubric. But where Iran weaponizes divine authority to dictate law, the Founders invoked natural rights precisely to constrain government, not to empower it. The two justifications are diametrically opposed: one elevates ecclesial rule, the other checks civil power.
Our nation, soon to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration, deserves leaders who understand its founding creed. Kaine’s statement isn’t a mere misspeak; it betrays a failure to grasp the moral genealogy of American liberty.
We cannot afford to lose sight of why our republic exists. Rights are not fads or franchises sold by governments; they are the nature of human dignity. They come from God or nature—not Congress. To confuse the source with the safeguard is to undermine our liberty.
As a public servant, Senator Kaine has sworn to defend the Constitution. That oath is not to a shifting statute, but to principles much older and higher. Let us hope he reclaims that vision before all that remains is the State.
Greg Schaller serves as the director of the Centennial Institute, the conservative think tank of Colorado Christian University. He has taught politics at CCU, Villanova University and St. Joseph’s University. He holds a B.A. in political science and history from Eastern University and an M.A. in political science from Villanova University.
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