Organic Law

The United States Code, the federal government’s official publication of the “General and Permanent Laws of the United States” has as the preamble to the Code a section titled “The Organic Laws of the United States of America”. The Organic Laws are, historically, four documents that are inextricably connected. They are the reference point and guiding light to interpreting and understanding the breadth and application of the federal statutes, civil rights and constitutional matters. Cox, Richard, Four Pillars of Constitutionalism. New York: Prometheus Books (1998). “The principles embedded in the Organic Laws are those that go back to the Founders: the natural rights of man; the law of nature; and republican government, based on the consent of the governed, as the one true mode by which to give institutional effect to such rights and such law.” Id at 17-18. The Organic Laws are the historical center of defining the fundamental rights and human dignity for all humans in the United States then and today.

The four Organic Laws – in the order as they appear in the Code- are: (1) The Declaration of Independence – 1776. It is the Organic Law which states the principles of natural rights, denominated as self-evident truths, justifying the thirteen states uniting for the revolutionary overthrow of the rule of England. A bedrock American principle was born in this venerated document: “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, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” (2) The Articles of Confederation – 1777. It is the Organic Law which first binds the newly independent states together and which states the principles of government of what is repeatedly called a “perpetual union”. Article III states: “The said states hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defence, the security of their Liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever.” (3) Ordinance of 1787: The Northwest Territorial Government. It is the Organic Law which states the principles of government for the vast territory in what we now call the upper Midwest. The most notable principle is the prohibition against slavery which finds authority in the firmly rooted principles of the Declaration of Independence. The Ordinance is also a resounding declaration of liberty that served as the model for the Bill of Rights, state constitutions, and the Thirteenth Amendment. (4) Constitution of the United States of America (1787). It is the Organic Law which states the purposes of “We the People of the United States” and the frame of government which is enacted in the Constitution. Cox, Richard, Four Pillars of Constitutionalism. New York: Prometheus Books (1998); Hegreness, J, Matthew, An Organic Law Theory for the Fourteenth Amendment: The Northwest Ordinance as the Source of Rights, Privileges, and Immunities, 120 Yale L.J. 1820 (2011).