Unalienable rights

“ Nothing then is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man. ”

“ Those rights which are unalienable are not alienated. They still remain with the great body of the people. If any right be given up that ought not to be, let it be shown. Say it is a thing which affects your country, and that it ought not to be surrendered: this would he reasonable. ”

“ There is no question here of dynasties, races, religions,—but simply whether we will consent to include in our Bill of Rights—not merely as of equal validity with all other rights, whether natural or acquired, but by its very nature transcending and abrogating them all—the Right of Anarchy. ”

“ It can be, and has been, argued that when this Court strikes down a legislative act because it offends the idea of 'fundamental fairness' it furthers the basic thrust of our Bill of Rights by protecting individual freedom. But that argument ignores the effect of such decisions on perhaps the most fundamental individual liberty of our people-the right of each man to participate in the self-government of his society. ”

“ That while we welcome to legal freedom the recent slaves, we solemnly remonstrate against all State or National legislation which may exclude them from any locality, or debar them from any rights or privileges as free and equal citizens of a common Republic. ”

“ The idea, therefore, of any inherent authority or sovereignty in our governments, as governments, or of any inherent right in the majority to restrain individuals, by arbitrary enactments, from the exercise of any of their natural rights, is as sheer an imposture as the idea of the divine right of kings to reign, or any other of the doctrines on which arbitrary governments have been founded. ”

“ Adopt this meaning of the word "free," and some three millions of native born, but now crushed human beings, become, with their posterity, men and citizens. Adopt this meaning—this legal meaning—this only meaning that can, in this clause, be legally given to the word "free," and our constitution becomes, instead of a nefarious compact of conspirators against the rights of man, a consistent and impartial contract of government between all "the people of the United States," for securing "to themselves and their posterity the blessings of liberty" and "justice." ”

“ Hence, he who does an injury to another wrongs not him only, but wrongs his Maker, his Sovereign, and his Judge.
Take any of the rights enumerated as inalienable in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. Among these is the right to life. This right all men and civil society itself are bound to treat as sacred and inviolable. But all men are created equal, and under the law of nature have equal rights. But how can equals bind one another? ”

“ If such power is conferred, the constitution, instead of being the paramount law as intended—establishing the rights of the people, controlling legislative enactments, defining the powers of the different departments of the government, and guaranteeing protection from unjust and oppressive laws, and decisions of courts—is instead but an instrument to be used for the enslavement of the people. ”

“ The contention that the statute violates the state Constitution is grounded upon two sections of the Bill of Rights, viz., § 1, 'That all men are equally free and independent; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights ”

“ But if in the formation of a constitution, we depart from the principle of equal rights, or attempt any modification of it, we plunge into a labyrinth of difficulties from which there is no way out, but by retreating. Where are we to stop? Or by what principle are we to find out the point to stop out, that shall discriminate between men of the same country, part of whom shall be free, and the rest not? If property is to be made the criterion, it is a total departure from every moral principle of liberty, because it is attaching rights to mere matter, and making man the agent of that matter. ”

“ Whoever, by virtue of public position under a state government, deprives another of property, life, or liberty without due process of law, or denies or takes away the equal protection of the laws, violates the constitutional inhibition ”

“ What is to be done when no recognition of the implicit rights of the slave can be elicited from the public conscience; when the legal prohibitions described are supported by the only conceptions of general good of which the body of citizens is capable? Has the citizen still a right to disregard these legal prohibitions? ”

“ We, the members of this association, must plead guilty, in common with the entire community, to suffering the fundamental principles underlying the very fabric of our government, and guaranteed by our constitution—principles called inalienable rights of man—to be overridden and practically abrogated by lawless bodies throughout the land.
Thus far are we equally guilty with all other citizens in neglecting our duty as such. To uphold this government and constitution is the duty of all citizens. ”

“ And in the event of a failure of every constitutional resort, and an accumulation of usurpations and abuses, rendering passive obedience and non-resistance a greater evil, than resistance and revolution, there can remain but one resort, the last of all; an appeal from the cancelled obligations of the constitutional compact, to original rights and the law of self-preservation. ”

“ Away, then, with the notion that liberty and equality are inconsistent. But here is the artifice: by merging the rights and independence of the individual in the fictitious order of society, those rights become arbitrary, capricious, equivocal, removable at the pleasure of the state or ruling power; there is nothing substantial or durable implied in them: if each has no positive claim, naturally, those of all taken together can mount up to nothing; right and justice are mere blanks to be filled up with arbitrary will, and the people have thenceforward no defence against the government. ”

“ The State might require such oath for any period of their past lives, might call upon them to affirm whether they had observed the Ten Commandments, or had discharged any particular civil or moral duty, or had entertained any particular sentiments, or desires, or sympathies, as a condition of their being allowed to engage in one of the ordinary pursuits of life, in a profession, trade, or business. It might impose conditions which individuals and whole classes in the community would be unable to comply with, and thus deprive them of civil and political rights. ”

“ Perhaps no principle embodied in these Canons lies so deep under the whole movement against free government in religious and civil society as the principle that confounds civil rights with natural ones, and, by denying that the State is the source of all rights, covers the denial of the fact that it is the source of legal rights. ”

“ Everything else will be subordinate to them; they will form the only legitimate line of distinction between parties, and all attempts to divert public attention from them, or to palliate them with compromises or secondary issues, will prove futile and abortive. Their final decision, one way or the other, will decide the practical existence of a people.
Such a contradiction is that between liberty, founded upon the natural rights of man, and slavery, founded upon usurpation ”

“ I have no dread that they will immediately infringe the dearest rights of the people, but that the operation of the government will be oppressive in process of time. Shall we not pursue the dictates of common sense, and the example of all free and wise nations, and insist on amendments with manly fortitude? ”

“ The defense of one’s concrete legal rights, when these rights are attacked, is a duty of the individual whose rights have been invaded, not only to himself, but also to society? If what I have said be true, that in defending his legal right he, at the same time, defends the law, and in the law that public order which is indispensable, who can deny that, in defending them, he fulfills a duty to the commonwealth? ”

“ The complete suppression of all oligarchical pretensions, and the complete enfranchisement of all citizens, so that there shall be no denial of rights on account of race or color, but justice shall be impartial, and all shall be equal before the law. ”

“ After the lapse of generations, when our obligations have increased with increasing light, at an epoch of history when mankind are more than ever before sensitive to the claims of human rights, and when among ourselves there is more than ever before a desire and a duty to fulfil all the promises of the Declaration of Independence, we are invited to make the Constitution disown the Declaration of Independence, insult the conscience of mankind, and disregard all the obligations pressing upon us. ”

“ A State which constantly seeks to increase its internal strength, is thus forced to desire the gradual abolition of all Privileges, and the establishment of Equal Rights for all men, in order that it, the State itself, may enter upon its own true Right,—to apply the whole surplus power of all its Citizens, without exception, for the furtherance of its own purposes. ”

“ There are limitations on such power which grow out of the essential nature of all free governments. Implied reservations of individual rights, without which the social compact could not exist, and which are respected by all governments entitled to the name. ”

“ Its powers are limited in number, and clearly defined; and its action within the scope of those powers is restrained by a sufficiently rigid bill of rights for the protection of its citizens from oppression. ”

“ The song of State Rights has for its constant refrain the asserted Equality of the States. Is it not strange that words so constantly employed as a cover for pretensions against Human Rights cannot be found in the Constitution? ”

“ Section 1 aimed at another evil, the evil not of combinations dedicated to purposeful and systematic discrimination, but of violation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution through the authority, enhanced by the majesty and dignity, of the States. Here it was precisely this authorization, this assurance that behind a constitutional violation lay the whole power of the State, that was the danger. ”

“ The practical result is a vague exaltation of the prerogatives of the sovereign people, without any corresponding limitation of the conditions under which an act is to be deemed that of the sovereign people. The justifiability of laws and acts of government, and of the rights which these confer, comes to be sought simply in the fact that the people wills them, not in the fact that they represent a true 'volonté générale,' an impartial and disinterested will for the common good. ”

“ If, then, law be a natural principle—one necessarily resulting from the very nature of man, and capable of being destroyed or changed only by destroying or changing the nature of man—it necessarily follows that it must be of higher and more inflexible obligation than any other rule of conduct, which the arbitrary will of any man, or combination of men, may attempt to establish. Certainly no rule can be of such high, universal and inflexible obligation, as that, which, if observed, secures the rights, the safety and liberty of all. ”

“ This barbarous article deprives them of the little remnant of right yet left them—their rights as citizens and as men. Weak and defenceless as they are, so much the more sacred the obligation of the Legislatures of the states to which they belong to defend their lawful rights. ”

“ It is said to conflict with the sense of justice, and to violate the fundamental principle of all free communities, that the members of such communities have equal rights to life, liberty, and personal security. ”

“ While both its power and its discretion must be so exercised as not to impair the fundamental rights of life, liberty, and property, and while, according to the principles upon which our institutions rest. ”

“ Under this form of legislation the most flagrant invasion of private rights, in periods of excitement, may be enacted, and individuals, and even whole classes, may be deprived of political and civil rights. ”

“ Thus the exclusion of criminals from the franchise, the designation of terms of minority as connected with the exercise of political duties, the regulation of the admission to citizenship of persons coming from foreign countries, find their justification in a principle which, so far from recognizing in Government or society a purely arbitrary control of the rights and exercise of self-government or personal liberty, brings it down within rigid and narrow limits of equality and necessity. ”

“ No such absurdity, mischief, or repugnancy, can be pretended in the present case. On the contrary, every reason of justice, convenience, and policy unite to prove the wisdom of embracing it in the prohibition. An impregnable barrier is thus thrown around all rights and franchises derived from the states, and solidity and inviolability are given to the literary, charitable, religious, and commercial institutions of the country. ”

“ From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor's rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own. And when the rights of one cannot be infringed without finding a ready defense in all others who defend their own rights in defending his, then, and only then, are the rights of all safe against the usurpations of governmental authority. ”

“ There is your Declaration of Independence, no longer the sacred code of the rights of man, but a hypocritical piece of special pleading, drawn up by a batch of artful pettifoggers, who, when speaking of the rights of man, meant but the privileges of a set of aristocratic slaveholders, but styled it “the rights of man,” in order to throw dust into the eyes of the world, and to inveigle noble-hearted fools into lending them aid and assistance. ”