St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1872-07-26
The Limitations of Government.

Mr.. Willard delivered short address
at st. AlhanS. on the Fourth of July.
on the limitations of government. We
print below portions of the address
which appeared III the st. Albans Mes
ScHger:
Before emancipation it WAS not easy
to make the Fourth of July il national
anniversary. except ~ ii WAS turned
into day of thoughtlc>s jubilee and
national Qualification. The great Dec
laration itself. WAS an argument against
slavery. i'll all its forms. and the States
of the niun which based their indus
tries upon enforced Labor found il an
annually recurring menace 10 the in
stitution hich denied in practice every
fundamental principle upon which the
revolt of the colonies was Justified. But
We are, let Us hope. far enough away
from the era in which the country con
tinually gave the lie to the truth of the
Declaration. once more to treat tins a.
II national anniversary. Through the
pains of Il civil War the devil of slavery
has been east ont. and throughout the
wide extent of our territory the day may
now Ice celebrated. without the shame
of that rcproach bringing the color L"
the face of any lover of his country. or
the assertions of the Declaration arouS-
Ing the hostility or the hate of any
American.
But cIattcl SerN itudc is not the only
enemy of freedom and equal rights.
The Declaration of Independence WAS
not prepared as Il protest or an agu-
mcnt against African slavery. Many
of the >igncr> of that wonderful state
ment of the rights of people were them
selves Shareholders. Mr.. Jefferson WAS.
with his battery of fundamental truths.
opening fire upon the expressions OF
England and possibly he even did not
notice that other dcSpotisms We're within
range of his shot. He huilded better.
perhaps. than he knew. and the friends
of every kind of unjust restraint upon
the liberty of the individual have found
the Declaration full of weapons per
petually a>Sailmg their pet usrIrpationS.
With slavery abolished we may not
unprotitahly, on such an occasion as
thus. consider. in national spirit and
a- cifcctimg the whole people. whether
there is not Vet for lis Il matter not only
for instruction hut for the most serious
admonitiom and warning in the tunda
mental principles of the Declaration of
Independence.
| have already said that Mr.. Jctfcr-
sons Declaration was Il protest against
the uSurpatlonS of Il government. In
that light read again this grand state
nent of truth aS old as the race:
I'VE hold these truths to he self
evident. that all men are created equal
that they are endowed hy their Creator
with certain unalicmahlc rights that
among these are life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. That to secure
these rights governments are Instituted
among men, deriving their just powers
from the consent of the governed"
am not so much considering what
government may constitutionally do,
as what it may rightfully do. The
grant of power i'll a constitution can
not make right what was before wrong.
and can take away no mans natural
rights. Shareholders and their friends
used to say it could. but no man who
believes i'll such a thing as an Hudlien-
able right ever consented to that doc
trine. Even courts, who follow, some
times hlindly, precedents and written
contracts. hold that mconscionable
agreements are void. and ii constitution
that takes away any ones right is un-
consciOnable, and all the more when
one as "A minority protested vainly
against 1t, or as an infant or a woman
was unable to protest at all.
But if government has no excuse for
existing, or, | may say, no right to ex
ist except to keep me from encroaching
upon my neighbOrs rights, ol my neigh
bor from encroaching upon my rights,
it clearly has no authority when it
transcends those limits. AS the LAWYERS
say sometimes of the courts, it has no
jurisdiction of the subject matter, and
its judgments are unauthorized, and
their enforcement is Just the tyranny
against which the men of the revolution
protested and rebelled.
Natural rights are perpetual and of
perpetual obligation in the language
of the Declaration undliendble, even by
ourselves, and belonging to every per
son coming into the world. However
we accommodate ourselves to existing
institutions or become SO far accustom-
ed to usIIrpatiOns as only feebly to
protest against them, even if we protest
at all, no government of one man, or of
majority, or of constitution can, 10y
any prescription, or by any lapse of
time, make wrong right any more than
it can make a lie the truth. We may
change the Aames of things but we
cannot change their nature OF their
essential elements. Our right to the
enjoyment of life and liberty, limited
only by the equal right of every other
person, is natural and unalienable, and