Another motion negatived. Resolution adopted. Petition refused. Principles of Williams. Illustration of a commonwealth. Religious rights. Sphere of government. Mr. Stanford then moved to amend the resolution by adding thereto the following: "So far as respects the progress of the mail and the issuance of letters on the Sabbath; but that the issuing of newspapers under the proper restrictions may be prohibited;" which motion was negatived. The question on concurring in the resolution reported by the committee, was then decided by yeas and nays. For the report, 81; against it, 41. So it was resolved that it is inexpedient to grant the prayer of the petitioners.' 1 In refusing to grant the petition and thus to give preference to the Sunday-keeper over the Jew and Mahometan, the Senate did no more than to carry out the principles taught by Roger Williams nearly two hundred years before. In his "Letter to the People of Providence," A. D. 1655, he defines the limitations of governmental authority in a way which shows how far he was in advance of his times: "There goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose weal and woe is common, and is a true picture of a commonwealth or a human combination or society. It hath fallen out sometimes that both Papists and Protestants, Jews and Turks, may be embarked in one ship; upon which supposal I affirm that all the liberty of conscience that ever I pleaded for turns upon these two hinges that none of the Papists, Protestants, Jews, or Turks be forced to come to the ship's prayers or worship, nor compelled from their particular prayers or worship, if they practise any. I further add that I never denied that, notwithstanding this liberty, the commander of this ship ought to command the ship's course, yea, and also command that justice, peace, and sobriety be kept and practised, both among the seamen and all the passengers. If any of the seamen refuse to perform their services, or passengers to pay their freight; if any refuse to help, in person or purse, toward the common charges or defense; if any refuse to obey the common laws and orders of the ship, concerning their common peace or preservation; if any shall mutiny and rise up against their commanders and officers; if any should preach or write that there ought to be no commanders or officers, because all are equal in Christ, therefore no masters, nor officers, nor laws, nor orders, nor corrections, nor punishments; I say, I never denied, but in such cases, whatever is pretended, the commander or commanders may judge, resist, compel, and punish such transgressors, according to their deserts and merits. This, if seriously and honestly minded, may, if it so please the Father of lights, let in some light to such as willingly shut not their eyes." THE SPHERE OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. WRITTEN BY THOMAS JEFFERSON TO FRANCIS W. GILMER.1 June 7, 1816. Office of the legislator. MONTICELLO, June 7, 1816. DEAR SIR: Our legislators are not sufficiently apprised of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us.2 No man has a natural right to commit not be taken 1" Works of Thomas Jefferson," volume vii, page 3. . 2 Blackstone, in section two of the introduction to his "Commentaries on the Laws of England," page 39 et seq., states this principle as follows: "This will of his [man's] Maker is called the law of nature. This law of nature, being coeval with mankind, and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this; and such of them as are valid derive all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original. "But in order to apply this to the particular exigencies of each individual, it is still necessary to have recourse to reason, whose office it is to discover, as was before observed, what the law of nature directs in every circumstance of life, by considering what method will tend the most effectually to our own substantial happiness. "Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as are life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal laws to be inviolable." "Even an act of Parliament, made against naturall equitie as to make a man judge in his owne case, is void in itselfe, for Iura naturæ sunt immutabilia, and they are leges legum." Lord Chief Justice Hobart, page 87. Natural rights should away. Laws of nature. Superior to all other laws. All laws derive their validity from it. Reason its interpreter. Natural without govrights ours ernmental sanction. Any statute against natural justice void. No human law contrary to the law of nature, valid. Upon the foregoing statement made by Blackstone, Herbert Spencer comments as follows: "No human laws are of any validity if contrary to the law of nature; and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original.' Thus writes Blackstone, to whom let all honor be given for having so far outseen the ideas of his time; and, indeed, we may say of our time. A good antidote, this, for those political superstitions which so widely a prevail; a good check upon that sentiment of power-worship which still misleads us by magnifying the prerogatives of constitutional governments as it once did those of monarchs. Let men learn that a legisla Blackstone ahead of his Sphere of the law. No natural rights given up by the formation of government. The legisla ture not om nipotent. Authority of in matters of religion. aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him; every man is under the natural duty of contributing to the necessities of the society; and this is all the laws should enforce on him; and, no man having a natural right to be the judge between himself and another, it is his natural duty to submit to the umpirage of an impartial third. When the laws have declared and enforced all this, they have fulfilled their functions; and the idea is quite unfounded, that on entering into society we give up any natural right. The trial of every law by one of these texts, would lessen much the labors of our legislators, and lighten equally our municipal codes. ture is not our God upon earth,' though by the authority they ascribe to it, and the things they expect from it, they would seem to think it is. Let them learn rather that it is an institution serving a purely temporary purpose, whose power, when not stolen, is at the best borrowed." "Social Statics," chapter 19, section 2. In reference to the authority of the legislature in religious matters, the legislature Madison, in his "Memorial and Remonstrance," of 1785, declared: "Either, then, we must say that the will of the legislature is the only measure of their authority, and that in the plentitude of that authority they may sweep away all our fundamental rights, or that they are bound to leave this particular right untouched and sacred." See ante page 37. The truth of the theory that the power of the legislature rightfully extends "only to the bodies and goods of men," as Roger Williams used to say, has been firmly established. Authority of the legislature temporal only. Erroneous views. Society for the protection of natural rights. Object of government. 1 The same political doctrine is expressed by Alexander H. Stephens: "Many writers maintain that individuals, upon entering into society, give up or surrender a portion of their natural rights. This seems to be a manifest error. In forming single societies or states, men only enter into a compact with each other- -a social compact — either expressed or implied, as before stated, for their mutual protection in the enjoyment by each of all their natural rights. The chief object of all good governments, therefore, should be the protection of all the natural rights of their constituent members. . . . No person has any natural right wantonly to hurt or injure another. The object of gov ernment is to prevent and redress injuries of this sort; for, in a state of nature, without the superior restraining power of government, the strong would viciously impose upon the weak. Wrongs upon rights could not be so efficiently prevented nor so adequately redressed. 66 Upon entering into society, however, for the purpose of having their natural rights secured and protected, or properly redressed, the weak do not give up or surrender any portion of their priceless heritage in any government constituted and organized as it should be.” Herbert Spencer, also, develops the following principle: "Every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided that he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man." "Social Statics," chapter 6, section 1. Or, as subsequently expressed : "Every man has the right to do whatsoever he wills, provided that in the doing thereof he infringes not the equal right of any other man.” And, in considering the idea that man surrendered a portion of his natural rights upon entering into the social state, Spencer says: No rights surrendered on the formation of govern ment. Statement of a principle. Equality of mankind. The pre legislatures. "The self-importance of a Malvolio is sufficiently ludicrous; but we must go far beyond it to parallel the presumption of legislatures. Some steward who, deluded by an intense craving after dominion, and an im- sumption of pudence equal to his craving, should construe his stewardship into proprietorship, would more fitly illustrate it. Were such an one to argue that the estate he was appointed to manage had been virtually resigned into his possession; that to secure the advantages of his administration its owner had given up all title to it; that he now lived on it only by his (the steward's) sufferance; and that he was in future to receive no emoluments from it, except at his (the steward's) good pleasure, — then should we have an appropriate travesty upon the behavior of governments to nations; then should we have a doctrine perfectly analogous to this fashionable one, which teaches how men on becoming members community, give up, for the sake of certain social advantages, their natural rights. Adherents of this fashionable doctrine will doubtless protest against such an interpretation of it. They have no reasonable cause for doing so, however, as will appear on submitting them to a cross-examination. Suppose we begin it thus : of a "Your hypothesis that men, when they entered into the social state, surrendered their original freedom, implies that they entered into such state voluntarily, does it not?' "It does.' "Then they must have considered the social state preferable to that under which they had previously lived?' An appropriate travesty Cross-examination. Entrance into the social state volun tary. Social state preferable. "Necessarily.' "Why did it appear preferable?' "Because it offered greater security.' "Greater security for what?' "Greater security for life, for property, for the things that minister to happiness.' "Exactly. To get more happiness: that must have been the object. If they had expected to get more unhappiness, they would not have willingly made the change, would they?' "'No.' Greater security offered. More happi ness secured. In what hap "Does not happiness consist in the due satisfaction of all the piness consists. desires? in the due exercise of all the faculties?' "'Yes.' "And this exercise of the faculties is impossible without freedom of action. The desires cannot be satisfied without liberty to pursue and use the objects of them.' "True.' "Now it is this freedom to exercise the faculties within specific limits, which we signify by the term "rights," is it not?' (See "Social Statics," page 93.) "It is.' 466 Well, then, summing up your answers, it seems that, by your hypothesis, man entered the social state voluntarily; which means that he entered it for the sake of obtaining greater happiness; which means that he entered it to obtain fuller exercise of his faculties; which means that he entered it to obtain security for such exercise; which means that he entered it for the guaranteeing of his " rights." "Put your proposition in a more tangible form.' "Very good. If this is too abstract a statement for you, let us attempt a simpler one. You say that a state of political combination was preferred mainly because it afforded greater security for life and property than the isolated state, do you not?' "Are not a man's claims to his life and his property amongst what we term his rights, and moreover, the most important of them?' "Then to say that men formed themselves into communities to prevent the constant violation of their claims to life and property, is to say that they did it for the preservation of their rights?' "It is.' "Wherefore, either way we find that the preservation of rights was the object sought.' "So it would seem.' "But your hypothesis is that men give up their rights on entering the social state?' "'Yes.' "See now how you contradict yourself. You assert that on becoming members of a society, men give up what, by your own showing, they joined it the better to obtain !' "Well, perhaps I ought not to have said that they "give up" their rights, but that they place them in trust.' "In whose trust?' "In that of a government.' "A government, then, is a kind of agent employed by the members of a community, to take care of, and administer for their benefit, something given into its charge?' |