New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-10-09

The liberties of the people, indeed most
neglected by an historian! Mr.. Wilson tells
us in effect, not alone in his speech at omahs
but in that summer home where SHADOWS
chase each other across the lawn, that he
cares not about the liberties Of the people OF
the United States, but only about the Liberties
of the people of any other country to de.
spitesullv use what deluded men have called
"inalienable rights" Of American citizens
whenever it pleases them to do so.
Mr.. Stimson has the temerity to call the
rights to liberty and to property, so zeaiously
protected by the Constitution, cardinal
rights" Enlarging upon the right to I'D
erty, he says -,
"For the broader understanding OF the I'D.
erty right involves as well as the liberty OF
life and person the liberty to support lie ano
family. That is, to exercise ones TABOR ireels
and without control, to acquire possessions
to earn wages and to exercise ones faculties
in any lawful way, without competition py
the state or any organism of the state and
without restraint or hindrance by the gov
eminent or by individuals. Closely
connected with it is the right to private prop
erty. at least in so far as such property IS
the result of mans labor, and the right TO
freedom of contract for such labor or n the
profits and conditions
What is property and what are property
rights? Is the former not the product oil
ones labor, and do not the latter embrace
the IDEA that what one lawfully gets by ones
labor is to be respected and not to be taken
from him by force or without due process OF
law?
Blackstone in his Commentaries or the
Laws of England" wrote:
"For the principal aim Of society is to pro-
tect individuals in the enjoyment OF those
absolute rights which were vested in them by
the immutable laws of nature, but which
could not be preserved in peace without that
mutual assistance and intercourse which IS
gained by the institution of friendly and
social communities. Hence, it follows that
the first and primary end of human laws 5
to maintain and regulate these absolute
rights of individuals"
He defines absolute rights" as follows:
"The absolute rights of man, considered as
a free agent. endowed with discernment to
know good from evil and with power OF
choosing those measures which appear to him
70 be most desirable, are usually summed lp
in one general appellation and denominated
the natural liberty of mankind This natural
liberty consists properly in a power OF act
ing as one thinks MT, without any reSlral'lt vi
control, unless by the law of nature, being a
right inherent in US by birth, and one Of the
gifts of God to man at his creation when : e
endued him with the faculty of free will"
More particularly he writes of the rights OF
the people of England as being reduced to
three principal or primary articles, namely:
"The right of personal security, the right
of personal liberty and the right of private
property; because, as there is no other
known method of compulson or of abridg-
ing mans natural free will but by an in
fringement or dmiLution of one or other
of these important rights, the preservation
of these, inviolate, may justly be said to in
clude the preservation of our civil immuni-
ties in their largest and most extensive
sense"
He is so misguided as to insist that the
right of personal security consists in per-
sons legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of
his life, among other things; that the right
of personal liberty consists, among other
things, in the power of moving ones person
to whatsoever place ones own inclination
may direct, without Imprisonment or re-