by Andrew Lynn
In vain would it be said, that though no bounds are here assigned to any of these rights, yet it is to be understood as taken for granted, and tacitly admitted and assumed, that they are to have bounds; viz. such bounds as it is understood will be set them by the laws. Vain, I say, would be this apology; for the supposition would be contradictory to the express declaration of the article itself, and would defeat the very object which the whole declaration has in view. It would be self-contradictory, because these rights are, in the same breath in which their existence is declared, declared to be imprescriptible; and imprescriptible, or, as we in England should say, indefeasible, means nothing unless it exclude the interference of the laws.
It would be not only inconsistent with itself, but inconsistent with the declared and sole object of the declaration, if it did not exclude the interference of the laws. It is against the laws themselves, and the laws only, that this declaration is levelled. It is for the hands of the legislator and all legislators, and none but legislators, that the shackles it provides are intended—it is against the apprehended encroachments of legislators that the rights in question, the liberty and property, and so forth, are intended to be made secure—it is to such encroachments, and damages, and dangers, that whatever security it professes to give has respect. Precious security for unbounded rights against legislators, if the extent of those rights in every direction were purposely left to depend upon the will and pleasure of those very legislators!
Nonsensical or nugatory, and in both cases mischievous: such is the alternative.
So much for all these pretended indefeasible rights in the lump: their inconsistency with each other, as well as the inconsistency of them in the character of indefeasible rights with the existence of government and all peaceable society, will appear still more plainly when we examine them one by one.
1. Liberty, then, is imprescriptible—incapable of being taken away—out of the power of any government ever to take away: liberty—that is, every branch of liberty—every individual exercise of liberty; for no line is drawn—no distinction—no exception made. What these instructors as well as governors of mankind appear not to know is that all rights are made at the expense of liberty—all laws by which rights are created or confirmed. No right without a correspondent obligation. Liberty, as against the coercion of the law, may, it is true, be given by the simple removal of the obligation by which that coercion was applied—by the simple repeal of the coercing law. But as against the coercion applicable by individual to individual, no liberty can be given to one man but in proportion as it is taken from another. All coercive laws, therefore (that is, all laws but constitutional laws, and laws repealing or modifying coercive laws) and in particular all laws creative of liberty, are, as far as they go, abrogative of liberty. Not here and there a law only—not this or that possible law, but almost all laws, are therefore repugnant to these natural and imprescriptible rights: consequently null and void, calling for resistance and insurrection, and so on, as before.
Laws creative of rights of property are also struck at by the same anathema. How is property given? By restraining liberty; that is, by taking it away so far as is necessary for the purpose. How is your house made yours? By debarring every one else from the liberty of entering it without your leave.
2. Property. Property stands second on the list—proprietary rights are in the number of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man—of the rights which a man is not indebted for to the laws, and which cannot be taken from him by the laws. Men—that is, every man (for a general expression given without exception is a universal one) has a right to property, to proprietary rights, a right which cannot be taken away from him by the laws. To proprietary rights. Good: but in relation to what subject? For as to proprietary rights—without a subject to which they are referable—without a subject in or in relation to which they can be exercised—they will hardly be of much value, they will hardly be worth taking care of, with so much solemnity. In vain would all the laws in the world have ascertained that I have a right to something. If this be all they have done for me—if there be no specific subject in relation to which my proprietary rights are established, I must either take what I want without right, or starve. As there is no such subject specified with relation to each man, or to any man (indeed how could there be?) the necessary inference (taking the passage literally) is that every man has all manner of proprietary rights with relation to every subject of property without exception: in a word, that every man has a right to everything. Unfortunately, in most matters of property, what is every man’s right is no man’s right; so that the effect of this part of the oracle, if observed, would be, not to establish property, but to extinguish it—to render it impossible ever to be revived: and this is one of the rights declared to be imprescriptible.
It will probably be acknowledged, that according to this construction, the clause in question is equally ruinous and absurd—and hence the inference may be, that this was not the construction—this was not the meaning in view. But by the same rule, every possible construction which the words employed can admit of might be proved not to have been the meaning in view: nor is this clause a whit more absurd or ruinous than all that goes before it, and a great deal of what comes after it. And, in short, if this be not the meaning of it, what is? Give it a sense—give it any sense whatever—it is mischievous: to save it from that imputation, there is but one course to take, which is to acknowledge it to be nonsense.
Thus much would be clear, if anything were clear in it, that according to this clause, whatever proprietary rights, whatever property a man once has, no matter how, being imprescriptible, can never be taken away from him by any law: or of what use or meaning is the clause? So that the moment it is acknowledged in relation to any article, that such article is my property, no matter how or when it became so, that moment it is acknowledged that it can never be taken away from me: therefore, for example, all laws and all judgments, whereby anything is taken away from me without my free consent—all taxes, for example, and all fines—are void, and, as such, call for resistance and insurrection, and so forth, as before.
3. Security. Security stands the third on the list of these natural and imprescriptible rights which laws did not give, and which laws are not in any degree to be suffered to take away. Under the head of security, liberty might have been included, so likewise property: since security for liberty, or the enjoyment of liberty, may be spoken of as a branch of security—security for property, or the enjoyment of proprietary rights, as another. Security for person is the branch that seems here to have been understood: security for each man’s person, as against all those hurtful or disagreeable impressions (exclusive of those which consist in the mere disturbance of the enjoyment of liberty) by which a man is affected in his person; loss of life—loss of limbs—loss of the use of limbs—wounds, bruises, and the like. All laws are null and void, then, which on any account or in any manner seek to expose the person of any man to any risk—which appoint capital or other corporal punishment—which expose a man to personal hazard in the service of the military power against foreign enemies, or in that of the judicial power against delinquents—all laws which, to preserve the country from pestilence, authorize the immediate execution of a suspected person, in the event of his transgressing certain bounds.
4. Resistance to oppression. Fourth and last in the list of natural and imprescriptible rights, resistance to oppression—meaning, I suppose, the right to resist oppression. What is oppression? Power misapplied to the prejudice of some individual. What is it that a man has in view when he speaks of oppression? Some exertion of power which he looks upon as misapplied to the prejudice of some individual—to the producing on the part of such individual some suffering, to which (whether as forbidden by the laws or otherwise) we conceive he ought not to have been subjected. But against everything that can come under the name of oppression, provision has been already made, in the manner we have seen, by the recognition of the three preceding
rights; since no oppression can fall upon a man which is not an infringement of his rights in relation to liberty, rights in relation to property, or rights in relation to security, as above described. Where, then, is the difference—to what purpose this fourth clause after the three first? To this purpose: the mischief they seek to prevent, the rights they seek to establish, are the same; the difference lies in the nature of the remedy endeavoured to be applied. To prevent the mischief in question, the endeavour of the three former clauses is to tie the hand of the legislator and his subordinates, by the fear of nullity, and the remote apprehension of general resistance and insurrection. The aim of this fourth clause is to raise the hand of the individual concerned to prevent the apprehended infraction of his rights at the moment when he looks upon it as about to take place.
Whenever you are about to be oppressed, you have a right to resist oppression: whenever you conceive yourself to be oppressed, conceive yourself to have a right to make resistance, and act accordingly. In proportion as a law of any kind—any act of power, supreme or subordinate, legislative, administrative, or judicial, is unpleasant to a man, especially if, in consideration of such its unpleasantness, his opinion is, that such act of power ought not to have been exercised, he of course looks upon it as oppression: as often as anything of this sort happens to a man—as often as anything happens to a man to inflame his passions—this article, for fear his passions should not be sufficiently inflamed of themselves, sets itself to work to blow the flame, and urges him to resistance. Submit not to any decree or other act of power of the justice of which you are not yourself perfectly convinced. If a constable call upon you to serve in the militia, shoot the constable and not the enemy—if the commander of a press-gang trouble you, push him into the sea—if a bailiff, throw him out of the window. If a judge sentence you to be imprisoned or put to death, have a dagger ready, and take a stroke first at the judge.
Article IV
Liberty consists in being able to do that which is not hurtful to another, and therefore the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no other bounds than those which insure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These bounds cannot be determined but by the law.
In this article, three propositions are included:
Proposition 1. Liberty consists in being able to do that which is not hurtful to another. What! In that, and nothing else? Is not the liberty of doing mischief liberty? If not, what is it? And what word is there for it in the language, or in any language by which it can be spoken of? How childish, how repugnant to the ends of language, is this perversion of language! To attempt to confine a word in common and perpetual use, to an import to which nobody ever confined it before, or will continue to confine it! And so I am never to know whether I am at liberty or not to do or to omit doing one act, till I see whether or no there is anybody that may be hurt by it—till I see the whole extent of all its consequences? Liberty! What liberty? As against what power? As against coercion from what source? As against coercion issuing from the law? Then to know whether the law have left me at liberty in any respect in relation to any act, I am to consult not the words of the law, but my own conception of what would be the consequences of the act. If among these consequences there be a single one by which anybody would be hurt, then, whatever the law says to me about it, I am not at liberty to do it. I am an officer of justice, appointed to superintend the execution of punishments ordered by justice: if I am ordered to cause a thief to be whipped, to know whether I am at liberty to cause the sentence to be executed, I must know whether whipping would hurt the thief; if it would, then I am not at liberty to whip the thief—to inflict the punishment which it is my duty to inflict.
Proposition 2. And therefore the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no other bounds than those which insure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of those same rights. Has no other bounds? Where is it that it has no other bounds? In what nation—under what government? If under any government, then the state of legislation under that government is in a state of absolute perfection. If there be no such government, then, by a confession necessarily implied, there is no nation upon earth in which this definition is conformable to the truth.
Proposition 3. These bounds cannot be determined but by the law. More contradiction, more confusion. What then? This liberty, this right, which is one of four rights that existed before laws, and will exist in spite of all that laws can do, owes all the boundaries it has, all the extent it has, to the laws. Till you know what the laws say to it, you do not know what there is of it, nor what account to give of it: and yet it existed, and that in full force and vigour, before there were any such things as laws; and so will continue to exist, and that forever, in spite of anything which laws can do to it. Still the same inaptitude of expressions—still the same confusion of that which it is supposed is, with that which it is conceived ought to be.
What says plain truth upon this subject? What is the sense most approaching to this nonsense?
The liberty which the law ought to allow of, and leave in existence—leave uncoerced, unremoved—is the liberty which concerns those acts only, by which, if exercised, no damage would be done to the community upon the whole; that is, either no damage at all, or none but what promises to be compensated by at least equal benefit.
Accordingly, the exercise of the rights allowed to and conferred upon each individual, ought to have no other bounds set to it by the law than those which are necessary to enable it to maintain every other individual in the possession and exercise of such rights as it is consistent with the greatest good of the community that he should be allowed. The marking out of these bounds ought not to be left to anybody but the legislator acting as such—that is, to him or them who are acknowledged to be in possession of the sovereign power: that is, it ought not to be left to the occasional and arbitrary declaration of any individual, whatever share he may possess of subordinate authority.
The word autrui—another, is so loose—making no distinction between the community and individuals—as, according to the most natural construction, to deprive succeeding legislators of all power of repressing, by punishment or otherwise, any acts by which no individual sufferers are to be found; and to deprive them beyond a doubt of all power of affording protection to any man, woman, or child, against his or her own weakness, ignorance, or imprudence.
Article X
No-one ought to be molested for his opinions, even in matters of religion, provided that the manifestation of them does not disturb the public order established by the law.
Liberty of publication with regard to opinions, under certain exceptions, is a liberty which it would be highly proper and fit to establish, but which would receive but a very precarious establishment from an article thus worded. Disturb the public order? What does that mean? Louis XIV need not have hesitated about receiving an article thus worded into his code. The public order of things in this behalf, was an order in virtue of which the exercise of every religion but the Catholic, according to his edition of it, was proscribed. A law is enacted, forbidding men to express a particular opinion, or set of opinions, relative to a particular point in religion: forbidding men to express any of those opinions in the expression of which the Lutheran doctrine, for example, or the Calvinistic doctrine, or the Church of England doctrine consists—in a prohibition to this effect, consists the public order established by the law. Spite of this, a man manifests an opinion of the number of those which thus stand prohibited as belonging to the religion thus proscribed. The act by which this opinion is manifested, is it not an act of disturbance with relation to the public order thus established? Extraordinary indeed must be the assurance of him who could take upon him to answer in the negative.
Thus nugatory, thus flimsy, is this buckler of rights and liberties, in one of the few instances in which any attempt is made to apply it to a good purpose.
What should it have done, then? To this question an answer is scarcely wit
hin the province of this paper: the proposition with which I set out is not that the Declaration of Rights should have been worded differently, but that nothing under any such name, or with any such design, should have been attempted.
A word or two, however, may be given as a work of supererogation: that opinions of all sorts might be manifested without fear of punishment; that no publication should be deemed to subject a man to punishment on account of any opinions it may be found to contain, considered as mere opinions; but at the same time, that the plea of manifesting religious opinions, or the practising certain acts supposed to be enjoined or recommended in virtue of certain religious opinions as proper or necessary to be practised, should not operate as a justification for either exercising, or prompting men to exercise, any act which the legislature, without any view or reference to religion, has already thought fit, or may hereafter think fit, to insert into the catalogue of prohibited acts or offences.
To instance two species of delinquency—one of the most serious, the other of the slightest nature—acts tending to the violent subversion of the government by force—acts tending to the obstruction of the passage in the streets. An opinion that has been supposed by some to belong to the Christian religion is that every form of government but the monarchical is unlawful; an opinion that has been supposed by some to belong to the Christian religion—by some at least of those that adhere to that branch of the Christian religion which is termed the Roman Catholic—is that it is a duty, or at least a merit, to join in processions of a certain description, to be performed on certain occasions.
