If the government can dictate what must be injected into your body, then who really owns you? That’s the question vaccine mandates force us to confront. And it is a question our Constitution already answers: all government must be “instituted for the general good,” and sovereignty rests with the people, not with the state.
New Hampshire’s Constitution is clear: It protects consent, affirms unalienable rights, and warns against arbitrary power. Vaccine mandates collide with each of those principles. They deny citizens the ability to refuse, they trample rights that cannot be bargained away, and they reduce free people to subjects.
Consent matters. Article 1 of our Bill of Rights says that all government “originates from the people, is founded in consent, and instituted for the general good.” Government has no powers except those entrusted to it by the people—and the people themselves have no authority greater than what God has given them as His image-bearers. No one would agree to be governed unless it meant greater protection of life, liberty, and property. Any law that makes people worse off than if no government existed at all violates the concept of the general good, that government can’t make anyone worse off than if there were no government.
Some rights are unalienable. Article 2 guarantees the natural rights of enjoying and defending life and liberty. The combination of Articles 3 and 4 adds that certain rights are “unalienable, because no equivalent can be given or received for them.” Bodily integrity is one of those rights. Once government assumes the authority to dictate what goes into your body, no equivalent can ever restore what was lost. The surrender is void.
Government is meant to protect, not oppress. Article 3 explains that when people enter society, they do so for mutual protection. If a policy forces you to risk injury or even death for someone else’s supposed benefit, there is no “equivalent protection.” Article 10 re-enforces the concept of the general good, calling it the common benefit and warns that non-resistance to arbitrary power is “absurd, slavish, and destructive.” Mandates are exactly that: arbitrary power over your own body.
Due process is missing. Article 15 guarantees that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property “but by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land (due process) .” Vaccine mandates deprive citizens of liberty without any process at all. They impose penalties automatically. And Article 14 promises every citizen a remedy in law when injured. But federal immunity shields vaccine manufacturers from lawsuits. That means a citizen could be forced to take a vaccine, harmed by it, and still find the courthouse doors closed. No due process on the front end. No remedy on the back end. Even if a remedy could be sought, there is no adequate compensation for death, or permanent disability.
Sovereignty belongs to the people. Article 8 says every government officer is only a substitute and agent of the people, “accountable at all times.” This, in combination with government originating from the people, makes it clear that government can have no power that the people didn’t give it. Furthermore, no one can give what they don’t possess in the first place. If your neighbor can’t come to your door and force you to take a vaccine, they can’t commission the government to do it on their behalf.
Article 32 gives the people the right to petition their Legislature for redress. If the State mandates a medical intervention that injures you, what redress can the Legislature offer? When the state dictates what must be injected into your body, sovereignty no longer belongs to you. It belongs to the state. That is not liberty—it is servitude.
For most of New Hampshire’s history, our laws reflected this understanding. Colonial and Revolutionary leaders emphasized quarantine and isolation of the sick to protect the community. Towns were later given authority to provide vaccination at public expense, but they were not authorized to compel it. Only much later, in the late 19th century, did New Hampshire—reluctantly and later than other states—adopt school exclusion policies that punished the unvaccinated. Those laws were not consistent with our constitutional heritage. They were borrowed from other states that lacked New Hampshire’s strong protections of liberty.
Defenders of mandates argue that they are necessary to protect the vulnerable, the immunocompromised. But that logic collapses. If vaccines are effective, the unvaccinated pose no danger to the vaccinated. And if they are not effective, mandates are pointless. What cannot be justified is the idea that some must be forced to risk their lives for others. That is not protection—it is oppression.
At the heart of the issue is this: who owns your body? Your rights come from God, not from bureaucrats. The state has no rightful claim to dictate what is injected into you or your child.
The people of New Hampshire are now exercising their right under Article 32 to petition for redress. Their demand is simple: repeal every vaccine mandate still on our books.
The General Court has a choice. It can cling to policies that deny consent, trample unalienable rights, and mock the state’s proud heritage. Or it can honor the Constitution, restore liberty, and reaffirm that New Hampshire truly is the “Live Free or Die” state.
The right path is clear. Vaccine mandates must go—every last one of them.
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