The Labor enquirer., 1883-09-22
TIE RleH Is Of NAN.
John Swinton Pounds Them Upon
Thomas Jefferson and
Upon
Our Declaration Of Independence,
in a Recent Address in New
York.
You Take Ny Life When You Do
Take the Means Whereby !
Live"

| Amid all the babble about the right
of man and his wrongs, how shall w
tell in what they really consist? Well
fortunately for us as Americans we have
an official document on this subject. I
contains an authentic statement from
the men who were the original builders
of this republic. That document is the
corner stone and foundation of this
young American republic, and whose
ever buildeth not upon this stone LEI
him be cast out. Though Rufus Choate
sneer at the great document, though il
be gcorned by both of our slaughter
house political parties, though false edi
tors falsify it, and ignoramusses under
value it, yet without it we have no Amer
lean republic worthy of the name, nc
freedom other than sham. 1t is the
Declaration of Independence, around
which battles were fought and through
which the revolution was triumphant.
We have men in New York who yawn
and squirm, or sneer at the mention OF
it, but do not let us sneer at it, or toler.
ate the sneers of others, for to us and to
our country 1t is everything. Its words
are as full of the spirit of life, and as
applicable to- day as they were hun
Fdred years ago,
Now, this everything document names
three natural rights with which all men
are endowed-the right to life, to liberty
and to the pursuit Of happiness.
How fruitful is each of these words,
and how pregnant the phrase, natural
rights" thing to which man is born
which belongs to him by the fact of his
birth, and which, in Jetferson's words,
is inalienable. Many arrogant scrib-
blers have denied that man has any nat
ural rights; but Jefferson, the author of
our great document differed from them
upon that great point, and our country is
a monument to his side of the difference.
. First in Jeferson's rights is the right
to life, including of course the means Of
life, the thing necessary to life. Every
man has rth-right to the means Of
life. and his life is itself assailed when
this is for any reason denied him.
Shakespeare makes that astute reasOner
ShvlOck utter these remarkable words !:
"You take my house
When you do take the prop that doth
sustain my house;
You take my life
When you do take the means whereby L
live"
Shylock's s words are true words, deep
and wise; and if ren are deprived Of
the proper means of life through any ar
rangement of society, any industrial sys-
tenn. any corporate power, any mOnOpo-
lizing aristocracy, any unjust distribu-
ton of the worlds products, murder is
perpetrated. Now, the chief means of
mans life is the soil, from which come
the food he eats, the cotton of which his
clothing is made, the wood or stone of
which his house is built the coal that
warns him, the iron, and brass and gold
that are of service to him. | am not
going to refer to the land question far
ther than to say that every mans rights
to life implies every mans right to land.
AS this, then, is one of the natural rights
of man, it is consequently wrong to
man to deprive him of his share Of the
soil in which the means of Life are
grown.
Upon Thomas Jefferson. and our Dec
laration of Independence do found
this principle.
The next natural and inalienable right
of every man is that to liberty-glorious
word !-meaning not merely the absence
of the grosser expressions of kings and
aristocracies, but the full freedom OF
personal manhood-the right to use and
develop, and enjoy all the manifold fac
ulties, powers, qualities and opportuni-
ties so bountifully bestowed upon man.
"What piece of work." says Hamlet,
"is man! How noble in reason how
infinite in faculties; in form and moving
how express and admirable in action
how like an angel in apprehension, how
like a god"
It is in this view of man that we must
consider the meaning and scope of mans
liberty. We are apt to give narrow OF
paltry meaning to the word; but we
shall never grow up to it, or even turn
our aim to it, until we see how it ought
to expand and elevate our life. True
enough, liberty is political and social
condition but l repeat that its finest
meaning is freedom for the growth of
full and generous manhood.
Liberty, then, i'll its every prope
sense, is among the natural nights o
man and consequently when, in any
way, he is deprived of it, heis the vic
tim of wrong.
Upon Thomas Jefferson and our Dec
laration of Independence do foun(
, this principle.
The third of the natural and inaliena
BILE rights of man, lying at the founda
ton uf our republic and referred to il
the great Declaration, is the right to tn