Freedom of association

“ As Progress is the great intellectual discovery of the modern world, so Association is its new-found instrument. Thus association must be dear to the state as individual liberty; and provided that any particular association is peaceful and public, and respects elementary liberties, and has no immoral end in view, the state must allow it perfect freedom. ”

“ Free association, or freedom which limits itself to expressing equality in the means of production and equivalence in articles of exchange, is the only possible, the only right, and the only true form of society. ”

“ Freedom of association shall include the right to establish or join political associations and parties and through them to work democratically to give form to the will of the people and to organise political power. ”

“ Let the main object of association be ever so important, must there not be always, to preserve discipline and beat the enemy, a terrible sacrifice of conscience and of freedom of opinion? Is not legislation, on the most vital subjects, apt to be governed, not by regard for the public good, but by the exigencies of the conflict and the necessity of keeping up the ministerial steam, or raising an agitation to drive opponents from power? ”

“ Freedom of assembly and association1 Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests. No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights other than such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. ”

“ Jointly, the people insist that the government shall be based upon justice and the participation of the people therein, regardless of their station in life, equality before the law, inviolability of domicile, the freedom of association, of speech and of the press, and compulsory education. ”

“ A basis of association narrower than the whole complex of human powers and interests will not serve. National organization provides such a basis. The perversity of human nature may cause its ultimate failure; but it will not fail because it omits any essential constituent in the composition of a permanent and fruitful human association. So far as it fulfills its responsibilities, it guarantees protection against predatory powers at home and abroad. It provides in appropriate measure for individual freedom, for physical, moral, and intellectual discipline, and for social consistency. ”

“ And the spirit of association, I cannot but believe, grows stronger every day. In this most glorious century—the noblest century for the advancement of mankind that the world has ever seen, yet only the beginning of the things that are to follow—we have gained an immense number of things: the suffrage, vote by ballot, the Factory Acts, abolition of flogging, the freedom of the press, the right of public meeting, the right of combination, and a system of free education by which the national character, the national modes of thought ”

“ Thus association in equality is the law of progress. Association frees mental power for expenditure in improvement, and equality, or justice, or freedom—for the terms here signify the same thing, the recognition of the moral law—prevents the dissipation of this power in fruitless struggles. ”

“ The test of tolerance is not how one finds space for people with whom, and practices with which, one feels comfortable, but how one accommodates the expression of what is discomfiting.
[61] ⁠As was said by this Court in Christian Education [73] there are a number of constitutional provisions that underline the constitutional value of acknowledging diversity and pluralism in our society, and give a particular texture to the broadly phrased right to freedom of association contained in section 18. ”

“ Moreover in an association based upon the individual freedom of the associates, each man had a right to guard the integrity of the compact to which he was himself a party; and not only a right, but a strong interest in exercising it, for in proportion to the smallness of the state, is the effect which the conduct of any single member may produce upon its welfare. ”

“ Association, however, does not extinguish nor appreciably lessen the natural instincts, desires, feelings, sentiments, etc., of the individual, though they may be made less active by continued restraint. Association even extends the scope of man's individual desires and activities. He now desires freedom to make arrangements with other men of such nature and for such purposes as he and they may agree upon. If he is prevented by authority from making such arrangements he feels some resentment, feels that his right is infringed. ”

“ The same shall apply to associations which are not exposed to substantial competition in their sphere of activity. Within the scope of the association's purpose, members shall have the right to the unimpeded exercise of freedom of opinion and assembly and to freedom of group formation. Equal participation in the formation of will within the association shall be guaranteed. ”

“ The Memorandum of Association sets forth that the Society's Objects are:—To promote the principle that human conduct should be based upon natural knowledge, and not upon supernatural belief, and that human welfare in this world is the proper end of all thought and action. To promote freedom of inquiry. To promote universal Secular Education. To promote the complete secularization of the State, etc. ”

“ We consider that, based upon the privilege of each individual to act on his own behalf, by the very basis of society, the privilege to join all of one's energy to that of one's co-citizens, in all projects aiming for defence or mutual interest, and consequently the right of association, is a right as sacred and as unalienable as that of individual liberty itself. ”

“ And thence would spring society, free association, hundreds of associations which would regulate social life; though at the same time they would remain variable, in fact often opposed and hostile to one another. ”

“ The trial by jury that we had been taught to see as the palladium of our freedoms, has now become a vain illusion, an instrument of despotism, since the sheriffs, creatures of the Executive, on which each day they depend for their continuation in a charge to which enormous emoluments are attached, have the freedom to choose and summon such jury that they like, and consequently can become the arbiters of the people in the political lawsuits launched by its oppressors. ”

“ The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before. ”

“ In all places individualists of our tendency wish to establish — now and at all times — a human milieu founded on the individual act and in which, without any control, intervention, intrusion of the State, all individuals can, whether isolated or associated, govern their affairs among themselves, by means of free agreements, voidable on notice, no matter what the activity, whether the association be the work of a personage or of a collectivity. ”

“ The authority of a motherland over a colony can only exist for as a long as the colonists who live in it find this relation to their advantage; because it has been established and populated by these colonists, this country belongs to them by right, and consequently can be separated from any foreign connection whenever the disadvantages, resulting from an executive power located abroad and which ceases to be in harmony with a local legislature, make such a step necessary to its inhabitants, in order to protect their lives and their freedom or to acquire prosperity. ”

“ Again, if the right to share in the joint government is not inherent, from whence does it come? Who can give the right to govern another? and how can any give what he has not got? Society is but the aggregate of individuals, and in its authority represents only the conceded limitations on all, not any reservoir of human rights, otherwise human rights would vary with every changing association. ”

“ It disguises it cleverly from others, and even from itself, under the seductive names of fraternity, solidarity, organisation, association. And because we do not ask so much at the hands of the law, because we only ask it for justice, it supposes that we reject fraternity, solidarity, organisation, and association; and they brand us with the name of individualists. ”

“ This might do very well if the state were, like the temperance society or debating club, a simple voluntary association, which men are free to join or not as they please, and which they are bound to obey no farther and no longer than suits their convenience. ”

“ The false light of the age has discovered that every thing is radically and fundamentally wrong; that the arrangements and order of Providence do not suit the advanced state of society; and that the principle of voluntary association is the great panacea for all the moral, religious and political evils, society is heir to: that even Liberty and Christianity must be put under safe restrictions, lest men become, under their unrestrained influence, lawless and wild. ”

“ The members of an association must be unfettered as to its nature and object and methods (always provided that they are legitimate) , 272 must be free to take up or resign their membership. "Sacred to us is the individual; sacred is society. We do not mean to destroy the former for the latter and found a collective tyranny; nor do we mean to admit the rights of the individual independently of society, and consign ourselves to perpetual anarchy. We want to balance the operations of liberty and association in a noble harmony." ”

“ We believe, therefore, in the Holy Alliance of the Peoples as the vastest formula of association possible in our epoch;—in the liberty and equality of the peoples without which no true association can exist; in nationality, which is the conscience of the peoples, and which, by assigning to them their part in the work of association, their function in humanity, constitutes their mission upon earth, that is to say, their individuality, without which neither liberty nor equality is possible ”

“ Can I say our social laws are generally better, or show a nobler insight into the wants of man and woman? I do, indeed, say what I believe, that voluntary association for improvement in these particulars will be the grand means for my nation to grow, and give a nobler harmony to the coming age. ”

“ It may be literally true, that the chief formation of a long-drawn social life is not the relation of authority and subordination between parts of the group, not the gradation of its members into classes, not the systems of sustaining, transporting or regulating organs, but certain ideals and standards, certain likes and dislikes, certain admirations and abhorrences become common to its members. Here then, I venture to suggest, is the ultimate test of association. The abiding of men in the same neighborhood without conflict is mere aggregation. ”

“ I shall hereafter have occasion to show the effects of association upon the course of society, and I must confine myself for the present to the political world. When once the right of association is recognized, the citizens may employ it in several different ways. ”

“ For what man, however good be his desires, can control himself and his family in their habits and manners of life and fashions, without the aid of the surrounding community? What sensible man can hold me or my brethren responsible, in all respects, either for ourselves or our households, unaided by the community and while the community are all working against us? But when the community learn to work together, and are agreed in a common purpose, what is it that they can not accomplish? Union is strength, and a combination of labor and capital will give us power at home and abroad. ”

“ When urgent events in the affairs of a country make it necessary for citizens to form associations, the respect that is due to the opinions of society requires that these citizens explicitly declare the motives which led them to coalize, and the principles that they intend to establish by the means of their organization. ”

“ No assembly of citizens can style itself a popular society.
362. No private society occupying itself with political questions can correspond with another, or affiliate with it, or hold public sittings composed of the members of the society and of associates distinguished from one another, or impose conditions of admission and eligibility, or arrogate to itself rights of exclusion, or cause its members to wear any external sign of their association. ”

“ It is with the fifth chapter that the powerful argument begins, and the logical precedence of human association to any particular form of government is the foundation stone of that analysis. It is this indeed which gives its title to the book: the moral authority of men in community arises from conscious association ”

“ If you want to be free, there is but one way: it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other.
True, there are difficulties connected with an organization of society founded upon the basis of equal rights. ”

“ It would leave these wholly to the incurable ignorant dupes who will maintain impostors in idleness, eschewing with contempt all such nefarious alliance, and recognising alone the infinitely more dignified principle and functions of civil policy, i.e., the protection of person and property, the equality of rights, and the sacred freedom which is every man's birthright. ”

“ Association, therefore, if it retains one-love exclusiveness, contains the seeds of dissolution; and those seeds will be hastened to their harvest by the warmth of associate life. An Association of States with custom-house lines around each, is sure to be quarrelsome. ”