The Constitution does not permit. It does not dispense rights. It grants limited powers to the various branches of government and then provides checks and balances. Such as Article 1, Section 8: "The Congress shall have power to ..."
The Bill of Rights does not grant rights, either. Those 10 amendments limit the power of government to encroach on the rights presumed to belong to all of us.
The Founders were students of the proponents of natural law, especially John Locke and his treatises on government.
For the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson drew from Locke's argument that government must protect the people's life, liberty and property or it may be legitimately overthrown.
James Madison embraced Locke's concepts of checks and balances in the Constitution. Madison even thought the Bill of Rights unnecessary because such rights are presumed...
...Rights come from nature, not government.
A refresher course in the study of The Constitution would be useful only to museum curators and historians interested in ancient documents as today's politicians make up their rules as they go with no regard to that quaint old charter of yore. Still, we recommend the perusal of it now and again, if only to ascertain how far we have deviated from its concept and purpose.
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