CHAPTER V
THE CITIZEN, HIS RIGHTS AND DUTIES
The purpose of this chapter is to explain who are citizens, what their rights and duties are, and how training for citizenship is obtained.
The old systems of oppression.
What Civil Liberty Means.—One of the best ways to get an appreciation or what civil liberty means is to read any book which describes the life of the French people before the Revolution. In those days men could be arrested without any reason, thrown into jail for months or years without trial, and their property confiscated. No one could travel from one part of the country to another without permission. There was no freedom of religion, no freedom of speech, no freedom of the press. Nothing could be printed without a license from the authorities. The farmer who brought his produce into town had to pay a toll on it. The workman, in order to follow his trade, was required to join a guild and pay a fee. The amount of taxes which every farmer or workman had to pay depended upon the will of the tax-collectors, who made a profit out of the taxes. Soldiers were billeted or boarded in the homes of the people and the king paid nothing for it. The masses of the people toiled hard in order that princes and noblemen might live in luxury. That was the Bourbon despotism of old France.
Things are very different in France today under a republican form of government; they are different everywhere throughout Europe and America. Despotic rule has given way to government by the people, and government by the people has brought civil liberty.
LIBERTY, FRATERNITY, EQUALITY. By Edward Simmons
Copyright by Edward Simmons. From a Copley Print, copyright by Curtis & Cameron, Boston. Reproduced by permission.
LIBERTY, FRATERNITY, EQUALITY
By Edward Simmons