Johann Gottlieb Fichte

“ So long, for instance, as their possessions are separated by a river, which both parties consider impassable, it is useless for them to promise each other that they will not cross the river and attack each other's property. Nature has made the river the limit of our physical power. It is only when the river becomes fordable, or when we invent ships, that it becomes necessary to fix the river as the limit of our possessions by agreement. ”

“ But if we wish to make a qualitative distinction, a war can only be waged between separate absolute states, with a view to conquer each other's possessions, directly or indirectly; and a riot or insurrection is a revolt against the law within a certain commonwealth. A riot is opposition to law; a war has no reference to law at all, but ignores it. ”

“ A commonwealth which is to afford perfect security must embrace the whole globe, or at least, in order to be conformable to the conception of rights, must contain the possibility of uniting all mankind. We shall show in another place, that the only commonwealth which contains this possibility is that of the United States, and that hence the United States, with its form of government of a Confederate Republic, is the only lawful commonwealth on the face of the globe. ”

“ The most proper illustration of this conception is an organized product of nature. Precisely as in it, each part can be what it is only in its connection, and out of it would not be this; nay, out of all organic connection, would be absolutely nothing, since without the reciprocal action of organic forces, holding each other reciprocally in equilibrium, there would be no permanent form at all, but merely an unthinkable eternal war between being and not being: so, also, does man receive only in the state organization a determined position in the series of things, a point of rest in nature ”

“ Thus nature in the state unites again what she separated in the production of many individuals. Reason is only one, and its representation in the sensuous world is also only one; mankind is a single organized and organizing Whole of Reason. Reason was separated into many independent members; but even the natural institution of the commonwealth cancels this independence provisionally and unites separate numbers into a whole, until finally morality recreates the whole race into one.
The conception thus attained can be properly illustrated by the conception of an organized product of nature ”

“ Hence, that subordination and harmony of private and public will must not wait to be produced, but must exist from the very beginning in the power which is to carry out the law of compulsion; in other words, the private will of that power and the common will of all persons must be one and the same will; the common will itself, and none other, must be the private will of this power, and the power must have no other particular will of its own at all. ”

“ The protection-compact is to contain, at the same time, the fulfillment of its obligations. How is this to be realized? Evidently in the following manner: The compact, which is to establish the state organization, must at the same time provide for a protective power, to which each member of the organization must furnish his contribution. This contribution would at once be the fulfillment of his promise to protect the rights of all other members, and there could be no further uncertainty as to his affording that protection to the others upon which his own claim to protection is grounded. ”

“ If you give each separate part of the tree consciousness and a will, then each part, as it desires its own preservation, must also desire the preservation of the whole tree, because its own preservation is possible only on that condition. Now, what, then, is the tree? The tree in general is nothing but a conception, and a conception can not be violated. But the part wills that not a single part of all the parts shall be violated, because that violation would inevitably be felt by it too. ”

“ By undertaking to protect all the possessions of each citizen, it recognizes his title to those possessions; and thus the property-compact—which it at first appeared was only concluded between all as single individuals—is confirmed by the actual totality of the commonwealth.
In so far as the Whole must regard all violation of any of the possessions or rights of the single citizens as inflicted upon itself, the Whole is proprietor of all; but in so far as it wishes to have free use of any thing, only that which each citizen contributes toward the Whole is property of the state. ”

“ Previous to the agreement, the only legal ground which a person can make valid for the possession of a disputed object is his freedom and rationality; but all free beings can make the same ground valid. A dispute concerning the possession of their bodies is not possible amongst persons, since the natural end of each body, to be moved through free-will, is physically impossible to all but one. But to the rest of the sensuous world, all persons have the same claim.
It is not necessary, however, that both parties need claim the same property at the present moment ”

“ Nor is that clause equivalent to saying, "On condition that you have protected me at some past occasion." For the past is past, and is of no moment to me at present. Morality, gratitude, and other internal or moral qualities may, it is true, induce me to recompense past services, but in a Science of Right we must not take morality into account at all. On the field of law there is no means to unite men except through this insight: whatever you do to the other party, whether of good or of evil, you do not unto him, but unto yourself. ”

“ In the organization of a state or commonwealth, therefore, if that organization is to establish a general legal relation between individuals, each individual must agree with all others concerning the property, rights, and liberties which he is to have, and which he is to cede to the others. [1] Each must make this agreement with all the others in person. Each, is the one party, and all the others, as individuals—for only as individual free beings does he agree with them—are the other party. ”

“ A true union has not been comprehended until the uniting tie has been shown up outside of the conception—as we say, from the empirical standpoint—or until that which compels us in thinking to make this union, as we say, from the transcendental standpoint, has been shown up. We have shown up this uniting tie of the state as a whole in the conception of the individual who is to be protected. That individual being necessarily undetermined, because any one of all individuals may need the protection, this very undeterminedness unites all individuals into one. ”

“ If one or both of the parties have not this will, an agreement becomes impossible, and war is the result. The Conception of Rights requires each rational being to have this will, and there is a law of compulsion to force each person to enter an agreement, (which, it is true, has no applicability, since it is impossible to determine to what extent a person should relinquish his claim,) all of which has already been proved. ”

“ That which the individual does not contribute to the Whole is his own, and in respect to it he remains individual, a free, independent person; and it is this very freedom which the state has secured to him, and to secure which he became member of a state. Man separates himself from his citizenship in order to elevate himself with absolute freedom to morality; but in order to be able to do so, he becomes a citizen. ”

“ The distinction between war and riot may be held to be either quantitative or qualitative. If held to be only quantitative, our late war, of course, was a war, and every large riot must then be called a war. ”

“ This compact guarantees itself, it contains in itself the sufficient ground that it will be kept, as indeed all organized bodies have in themselves the sufficient ground of their existence. Either this compact does not at all exist for a person, or, if it does, it completely binds him. ”

“ On condition that you protect my rights, I will protect your rights. How, then, does some party obtain the right to claim the protection of the other? Evidently, by actually protecting the rights of the other.
But if this is so, no party will ever obtain a strictly legal claim to the protection of the other. ”

“ But the object of state organization is, to protect the rights guaranteed to each in the property-compact against all attacks whatever, and so to protect them by compulsion or physical force, if necessary. ”

“ The same relation exists between the isolated man and the citizen. The former acts purely to satisfy his wants, and none of his wants are satisfied except through his own acts; whatever he is exteriorly he is only through himself. The citizen, on the contrary, has much to do and to leave undone, not for his own sake, but for the sake of the other ”

“ No one is supposed to care that the rights of the other are secure against his attacks, except in so far as his own security is conditioned by this security of the others. We may express this in the following formula: each one subordinates the common end to his private end. ”

“ Every grain of sand is as much an organized product as the tree or the animal; and its reference to the totality of nature is quite as clear, if we get to the inside of it. (Each monad, says LEIBNITZ, from this very character of referring to another, must express the whole universe.) ”

“ At present we only wish to show from this requirement that, in a commonwealth, the agreement should be one of all with all, and that, although the possessions of all on the surface of the earth may be in part, that is, in a certain respect, divided amongst the individuals, still in another respect, which the agreement must also determine, there must be a sphere of action for all ”

“ The citizens of the United States have formed their constitution and government solely to guarantee to each other "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." By ordering conscription, government takes away your freedom, in order to make you free; takes away your life, in order to secure it.—TRANSLATOR'S REMARK.↑ The deduction here undertaken lacks comprehensiveness in its application. Firstly: An organized product of nature is not a completed whole. ”

“ They held that the Declaration of Independence specified the original and inalienable rights of men in sufficiently comprehensive terms, and that it would only be productive of harm to specify them in greater detail in the Constitution, since such specification must necessarily be imperfect and would leave room open to the interpretation, that rights not specified could be taken away by act of Congress. ”