[LECTURE IV.]
THE QUESTION OF RIGHTS DISCUSSED.
Why it is necessary to define the term rights—The right in itself defined to be the good—The doctrine that the will of God is the origin of the right considered—The will of God not the origin of the right, but an expression of the right which is the good—Natural rights and acquired rights, each defined.
There are questions which lie back of this discussion—errors, as I think, which underlie the popular ideas of both government and rights. We should not consider that we had fully met the difficulties of the subject if we passed them by.
Domestic slavery, it is said, is an abridgment of inalienable rights; and legitimate government is a voluntary concession of certain alienable rights.
Natural rights are, of course, such as are inherent in the constitution of man: inalienable, because in point of fact he cannot be substantively deprived of them. The law which in any case provides to do this, treats him as though he were not a rational, but a mere sentient being—and therein alienates his rights. Domestic slavery is said to treat the slave as a mere chattel, a thing, not an entity, and hence deprives him by provision of law of the right of being treated as a rational being as he is, and not a mere thing. This is said, because it places his time and labor at the disposal of another man. How far this reproach is just, turns upon a definite answer to the question—What are rights?
“Government is a voluntary concession of certain alienable rights.” If this concession be made by the majority of the citizens, the government is called republican; if otherwise, it is called despotic. In this theory of government, certain rights are assumed to be given up, in order to secure other and more important rights. I have shown government to embody, of necessity, two great abstract principles in harmonious operation—though, in their essential nature, the one antagonizes the other. Now the principle of slavery—control by the will of another—certainly operates an abridgment of the exercise of self-control, which is the principle of liberty. And so far as the principle of slavery operates, in any given instance of government, is that, in such instance, a giving up, to that extent, of the right of self-control, in order to secure a right to the self-control which remains ungiven up? Is this so? This question also turn upon the solution of that other question—What are rights?
And again, self-control, we say, is the principle of liberty. Practical freedom is the exercise of the right of self-control. How far does the right of self-control extend? I say that an instance in which a body of men emerged from a state of nature, (so called,) and formed a government by an original act, is unknown to history. It never occurred. Man was placed originally by Jehovah himself under political law. The very moment that he placed the first being in a relation to another by giving him a “helpmeet,” he gave him a law to govern that relation, as we have seen; and all the subsequent acts of men in the matter of government-making, have been such modifications of the existing form of government as they supposed would better suit their circumstances. But it is said that when society meets in convention to agree upon certain principles called a constitution, under which the laws shall be made, men do virtually, for the time being, resolve themselves into their original position or state without government; and that the constitution so formed is virtually an original formation. Well, for the sake of the argument, let it be so. When, therefore, society thus falls back upon its original position, men stand upon the basis of what are supposed their original rights! What is that? Why, the right that each man has to do as he may please. They form a government: that is, give up a part, more or less, of their original right. Of course a part remains ungiven up, and the giving up cannot be to secure the possession of that which is already in possession! What is it that invests these questions with difficulty? Is it not the ambiguity of the term rights? Let us then define rights, if we would not be for ever entoiled by these absurdities.
And still again: Is liberty the right of self-control? Is not man—accountable man—free in virtue of his very humanity? Does this freedom imply absolute liberty? If so, absolute liberty is inherent in his very constitution—it is inalienable. What right, then, can he have to give it up, or any part of it? If so, he has the right to do that which subjectively he cannot do. If, then, government be a concession of the right of self-control in this sense, it is the concession of an inalienable right, and should be abandoned as a piece of folly.
It is entirely obvious, therefore, that we cannot advance in these inquiries at all without first settling the question, What are rights?