Texas Constitutional Convention Updates

Article 1. Declaration of Rights (a/o 9 November 1997)

Previous version

Section 1. All political power is inherent in the people, and all governments exist by the will of the people. The people of Texas retain the right to alter, reform, or abolish their government in any manner they believe proper, at any time.

Section 2. Every individual has the inherent right to life from physical conception to natural death.

Section 3. Every individual has the inherent right to liberty, which is the unrestrained exercise of free will, which shall never be infringed provided the exercise thereof does not violate the rights of any other individual.

Section 4. Every individual's body, life, labor, ideas, thoughts, and possessions that the individual has lawfully created or acquired are that individual's property. Every individual has the inherent right to the ownership, non-coercive acquistion, and use of property.

Section 5. Every individual has the inherent right to defend the life, liberty, or property of any individual using whatever force is necessary, through whatever means available, including the use of deadly force.

Section 6. Every individual has the inherent right to own, use, and carry arms of any description.

Section 7. All rights are retained by the people, are absolutely inviolable, and may never be denied, infringed, or violated in any way except in the sole circumstance of conviction of a crime or tort by due process of law as defined in this constitution, and then only as directed in the particular case.

Convention Update Index

Copyright at Common Law, West El Paso Information Network, 1997