The philosophy, history, and Supreme Court decisions of the United States have consistently held that human ri9hts--including First Amendment rights--are not subject to a majority vote. Unalienable means unalienable. As Ralph Ketcham states in The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates: American political thought and experience after 1776 in fact highlighted a tension built into the Declaration of Independence which proclaimed in one clause that certain rights were "unalienable," and in another that "Governments ... derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." Rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were not to be submitted to a vote or to depend on the outcome of elections; that is, not even the consent of the governed could legitimately abridge them. But it was nonetheless possible that the people, through their elected representatives, might sanction laws violating