Right of action

“ That the law may be a rule of action, it is necessary that it be known; it is necessary that it be permanent and stable. The law is the measure of civil right; but, if the measure be changeable, the extent of the thing measured never can be settled. ”

“ The "justices are commanded that they shall do even law and execution of right to all our subjects, rich and poor, without having regard to any person, without letting to do right for any letters or commandment which may come to them, or by any other cause." ”

“ It is, indeed, the negative power which makes the constitution — and the positive which makes the government. The one is the power of acting — and the other the power of preventing or arresting action. ”

“ Conceptions of social rights and obligations and the institutions based upon them continue unquestioned for long periods as postulates in all discussions upon questions of government. Whatever conduct conforms to them is assumed to be right. Whatever is at variance with them is assumed to be wrong. ”

“ Careful respect for the rights of others, vigorous and consistent defense of one's own rights, a deeply rooted love of freedom in thought, word, and action—these things are simply impossible wherever you intrust great powers to a Government, and allow it to use them not simply within a sphere of strictly defined rights, but as supreme judge of what the momentary convenience requires. ”

“ Let us reinforce, by word, deed, and example, the values that make law and order possible: personal responsibility, respect for others, and the fundamental sense of decency that comes from knowing the difference between right and wrong. ”

“ If we wish to practice justice, we must first learn the law of Right and Duty; that is, in striving to satisfy our own material wants, we must learn how to protect the rights of others. We must remember, that they too are toiling for the same purpose. ”

“ The law itself, the Eternal Right, for right's own sake, that alone must be our motive, the spring of our resolution, the ground of our obedience. Deep from our inmost souls comes forth the mandate, the bare and simple law claiming the command of our whole existence merely by its proper right, and disdaining alike to menace or to bribe. ”

“ SINCE no man has a natural authority over his fellow, and force creates no right, we must conclude that conventions form the basis of all legitimate authority among men. ”

“ I believe in law and order; but I believe, as a condition precedent, that law and order should be predicated upon right and justice, pure and simple. Law is, intrinsically, a written expression of justice; if, on the contrary, it becomes instead written injustice, men are not, strictly speaking, bound to yield it obedience. ”

“ All we ask is, as may be seen from the first chapter of this Essay, that the right of the individual, whether real or imaginary, may be held in subjection to the undoubted right of the community to protect itself and to secure its own highest good. ”

“ Nor can the citizen have any right against the state, in the sense of a right to act otherwise than as a member of some society, the state being for its members the society of societies, the society in which all their claims upon each other are mutually adjusted. ”

“ So there being many strong people in the world and many [pg 022] weak people, many wise people, and many simple people, the full grown and the children, and many, many people who are not guided by rules of right or morality or justice, you can see how necessary it is that someone shall provide rules and regulations under which the weak, the simple, and the young may be protected from the strong, the brutal, and the wicked who would deprive their neighbors of their rights or their property, simply because they had the power to do it. This is what the government does. ”

“ The sacred rights of this society we are to hold fast—such as, her right to elect her own officers, to call her own meetings, appoint her own fasts, and exercise her own discipline, independently of the state. ”

“ The fact that the individual would like to exercise the power claimed as a right does not render the exercise of it a right, nor does the fact that he has been hitherto allowed to exercise it render it a right, if social requirements have arisen under changed conditions, or have newly come to be recognised, with which its exercise is incompatible. ”

“ Against the impediments which particular governmental regulation causes to entire freedom of individual action, there must be weighed the value to the public of the ends which the regulation may achieve. ”

“ The capacity, then, on the part of the individual of conceiving a good as the same for himself and others, and of being determined to action by that conception, is the foundation of rights; and rights are the condition of that capacity being realised. ”

“ By the side of interest, which is the law of sensibility, reason has made us recognize the law of duty, which a free being can alone fulfil. From these ethics has sprung a generous political doctrine, giving to right a sure foundation in the respect due to the person, establishing true liberty, and true equality, and calling for institutions, protective of both, which do not rest on the mobile and arbitrary will of the legislator, whether people or monarch, but on the nature of things, on truth and justice. ”

“ They all find their authority and justification in the public good; nor does any one now attempt to resist a tax or defend a privilege, but by appealing to this great test of right, the interests of the community.
You see too in jurisprudence, that all those principles which grow out of barbarous usages, or were the result of accident, or of mistaken theory, are gradually made to give way to the light of reason and the spirit of philosophy. They conform more and more to the common sense and common feelings of mankind. ”

“ So, too, every man has, by nature, a right to judge of, and enforce, the rights, [Pg 104] and judge of, and redress the wrongs, of any and all other men. This right is included in his natural right to maintain justice between man and man, and to protect the injured party against the wrongdoer. ”

“ General laws are meant to regulate our conduct to each other, within certain rules; that the confidence necessary for the social union may be maintained. A principle laid down by the law, is promulgated as a general rule; and in the confidence that this rule will be respected by all; or that if violated, society will punish the violator, it is recognised as a general principle of action. ”

“ Amid the infinite diversities and complexities of human affairs the state wisely despairs of truly formulating the rules of justice. So far as possible, it leaves the task to those who by their nearness to the facts are better qualified for it. It says to its subjects: Agree among yourselves as to what is just in your individual concerns, and I shall enforce your agreement as the rule of right.
In the second place, men are commonly better content to bear the burdens which they themselves have taken up, than those placed upon them by the will of a superior. ”

“ It is irresistibly certain that He who ordains government has, alone, the right to alter or abolish it,--that He who institutes the powers that be has, alone, the right to say when and how the people, in whole or in part, may resist. ”

“ The second ambiguity is that of confounding a right of any kind, with a right to enforce that right by resisting or punishing a violation of it. People will say, for example, that they have a right to good government, which is undeniably true, it being the moral duty of their governors to govern them well. ”

“ The object of this Essay is to assert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. ”

“ that all are upon an equality, and that the only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed. ”

“ If the right represented by the Government is challenged, either without or within, the Government asserts it by force, and in either case disposes, to any extent that may be required, of the property, the persons, and the lives of its subjects. ”

“ Neither the few nor the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation. ”

“ By the practice and consent of men in all ages, some system or form of government is proven to be necessary to exercise, enjoy and secure these rights; and every people has a right to institute a government and to choose and adopt that system or form of it, which, in their opinion, will most effectually accomplish these objects, and secure their happiness, which does not interfere with the just rights of others. ”

“ In that instrument, the right to institute and to alter governments among men was ascribed exclusively to the people--the ends of government were declared to be to secure the natural rights of man; and that when the government degenerates from the promotion to the destruction of that end, the right and the duty accrues to the people to dissolve this degenerate government and to institute another. ”

“ In the nineteenth century, then, legal and political philosophers were agreed that the end of the legal order, the purpose of political organization and purpose of lawmaking, were to secure and maintain individual liberty. ”

“ But it is not necessary to violate the rules of action which we have established for ourselves in the constitution in order to deal by law with the new conditions of the time, for these rules of action are themselves subject to popular control. ”

“ How striking and instructive to observe the abstract rules of justice brought to bear, with equal readiness and precision, upon ordinary and extraordinary combinations of circumstances!—to witness the dead letter of the law become animated with potent vitality for the regulation of human affairs! ”

“ The doctrine here asserted, that all rights are relative to moral ends or duties, must not be confused with the ordinary statement that every right implies a duty, or that rights and duties are correlative. This of course is true in the sense that possession of a right by any person both implies an obligation on the part of someone else, and is conditional upon the recognition of certain obligations on the part of the person possessing it. ”

“ In the exercise of these natural rights, it has been supposed, men with a view to their general interest established political society. From that establishment is derived both the system of rights and obligations maintained by law as between man and man, and the right of the state to the submission of its subjects. ”

“ Now every society has the right of providing for what concerns the general interest, so that in permitting the parties to choose the judges of facts, the State reserves to itself the power to name the judges of right, who are the interpreters of the law. ”

“ Society has a claim upon all citizens. General rules have been adopted in the form of laws, for the protection of the rights of persons and things. These laws lie at the foundation of the social compact, and their observance is essential to the maintenance of civilization. In these matters the law, and not conscience, constitutes the rule of action. You are sworn to decide this case according to the law and testimony ”

“ I, my lords, though it is not of very great importance to confute an opinion by which the measures of the government will not be obstructed, cannot forbear to declare myself of different sentiments, and to assert, in opposition to artful calumnies and violent invectives, that the present measures were originally right, that they were such as prudence would dictate, and experience approve, and such as we ought again to take, if we have again the power of choice. ”

“ Right, therefore, has a personal or selfish reference, as it is founded on the law which determines a man’s actions in regard to his own being and well-being; and political justice is that which assigns the limits of these individual rights on their compatibility or incompatibility with each other in society. Right, in a word, is the duty which each man owes to himself ”

“ On the other hand, the constitutions of all civilized governments, whether written or unwritten, the principles of the civil as well as those of the common law, and the teachings of wise men of ancient and of modern times, recognize as a duty the protection of individual or selfish interests. They recognize as just and necessary the restraint and punishment of wrong-doers, and the protection of the rights and interests of the individual in person and property. ”

“ The advantage which humanity derives from law is this: that the law gives every man a rule of action, and prescribes a mode of conduct which shall entitle him to the support and protection of society. ”

“ But I leave comparisons to history, claiming only that I have acted in every instance from a conscientious desire to do what was right, constitutional, within the law, and for the very best interests of the whole people. Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent. ”

“ There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity,—the Law of Nature and of Nations. ”

“ And it will be long before social discipline has so far modified human character that reverence for law, as rooted in the moral order of things, will serve in place of reverence for the power which enforces law. ”

“ That which regulates the nature and form of the body politic; which establishes the relation that each individual bears to it, and the rights and duties growing out of that relation, which determines the principles on which it exercises authority over him; and settles a system of jurisprudence by which it operates to protect and enforce right, and to redress and punish wrong.
2. That which determines the relations of individual members of society to each other; which defines the rights growing out of that relation ”

“ I am properly obliged to those actions and forbearances which are necessary to the general freedom, necessary if each is not to interfere with the realisation of another's will. My duty is to be interested positively in my neighbour's well-being. And it is important to understand that, while the enforcement of obligations is possible, that of moral duties is impossible. But the establishment of obligations by law or authoritative custom, and the gradual recognition of moral duties, have not been separate processes They have gone on together in the history of man. ”