organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." It is necessary to read the whole paragraph, the longest in the whole declaration.

In order to understand the spirit of this whole passage, it is indispensable to present to our minds the period of the history of political philosophy—and there is no more instructive history-in which this passage was written, or of which it was the effect. It is not only the usus loquendi which, according to all hermeneutics, is requisite for truthful interpretation, but the whole political and philosophical spirit of the age of which we ought to have a vivid presentation in our minds. This makes it necessary that the philosophy of the period, say of the latter half of the eighteenth century, should be remembered-a period which in its somewhat jejune, philosophical character might perhaps be called the happiness-period, though no one, so far as I know, has ever given a definition, or even at least a general designation of that happiness, ever present in the writings of the period, and out of which arose at the beginning of this century the utilitarian doctrine.

If the outlines given in paragraph 2 lead to no definite legislative conceptions, the spirit which pervades the paragraph is nevertheless the fruit of noble political conceptions, and animates to high legislation. The jus divinum of mankind, that governments are for the benefit of men, and not the reverse, is reacknowledged after the Dutch Apology.

The Roman law acknowledged that men are equal by the jus naturæ, which means by the disposition of nature-by nature. The scholastic writers of the Middle Ages, imagining, as so many persons still do, that previous to the establishment of governments man lived in what was called the state of nature, also taught the original equality of men. Not only the great writer and man, Thomas Aquinas, canonized by the Romish church, but even Mariana, the prominent Spanish Jesuit writer under Philip II., who strove for universal mundane monarchy, as the Pope was the universal ruler of the church,

even Mariana teaches the equality by nature or original equality of men. The Dutch declared the object of governments and the great right of revolution in exceptional cases. Two centuries later the Americans proclaim in a national document that "all men are created equal," and that they possess "certain inalienable rights," and "that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Whatever this "pursuit of happiness" may mean, so much is certain, and so much we know from him who drew up this paragraph and the whole declaration, that it contained an abjuration of slavery, which was continued merely until the proper period for its abolition should arrive, and the lapse of one hundred years more was necessary before the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, after astounding phases in the theory of slavery had been run through. At one time it was literally doubted by many whether negroes had immortal souls, and benevolent Methodist preachers, born and bred in the South, who taught the contrary, were harshly, in some cases cruelly, treated; and when presiding over the archive office at Washington, I found the official instruction of the agent of the "Confederate government," by the "Confederate" secretary of state, to the effect that he should persuade the king of the Belgians, Leopold I., who had the reputation of being a Nestor among the European monarchs, and a man of the greatest possible weight in the councils of nations, that this agent should use all possible diligence and ingenuity to persuade King Leopold that they (the Confederates) were not the rebels or revolutionists, but the North, and that in the famous passage in the Declaration of Independence, by a Southerner, "that all men are created equal," the word men meant white men. The despatch is still in the archives at Washington. The most surprising of all is the egregious ignorance which could suppose that Leopold, or any other monarch, or, indeed, any man of sense, could be induced to believe such despicable stuff after religion, law, and philosophy had long established and acknowledged, by bulls, decrees, and whole codes, the humanity of the negro.

Von Raumer, Von Mohl, and Janin furnish the student who knows French and German, with important information on this subject.

Continuation of the Declaration of Independence as a Bill of

Rights.

It will be remembered, from my lectures on the English Constitution, that in my opinion there is no subject of greater importance in the whole history of the English constitutional development than the Petition of Rights, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of the Rights and Liberties of the subject, adopted on February 13, 1688, by the two houses and accepted by William and Mary. Many of the most specific rules of the Bill of Rights, as well as entire laws, have passed over as fundamental and important principles into our Constitution, for instance, the prohibition of billeting soldiers on citizens in times of peace (French and English history made such a rule seriously necessary); or the Habeas Corpus Act, under Charles II., which passed into our Constitution as "the Habeas Corpus principle," which shall not be abridged except under very peculiar circumstances.

As has been said already, however, the Constitution of the 4 United States has no separate bill of rights.

Some of the amendments, adopted immediately after the adoption of the Constitution, treat of points usually referred to in bills or declarations of rights,-e.g., no established religion, right of the people to bear arms, no soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, and nearly all the twelve additional articles.

Most of our state constitutions have declarations of rights. There is a great danger in bills of rights for small bodies, because they give an opportunity of fixing unalterably some ideas which may be new-fangled and owing to provincial vanity. Yet they are sometimes necessary and very impor

tant.

The Massachusetts constitution of 1780 (chiefly by John Adams) has a Declaration of Rights of the Inhabitants of the

• See Rowland's Manual of the English Constitution, page 427 et seq.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts. And in it is ordained-it is to be marked well-as a right of the citizen, that the judiciary shall be independent, and for that purpose judges, quam diu se bene gesserint, have honorable salaries by standing laws. All this is in the Bill of Rights. See my Reflections on the Changes which may be considered necessary in the Constitution of the State of New York, 1867.

As to the Declaration of Independence, partially to repeat what has been said before, we may consider it,

I. As containing positive declarations.

2. As to what a ruler or government ought not to do, against which the subject or citizen, therefore, ought to be protected.

As to I. In paragraph 2 we have found that it is declared that All men are born equal.

That there are certain natural rights called inalienable, and that among the chief of these are the enjoyment and the protection of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (the freedom from molestation as long as others are not injured).

That governments are for the benefit of the governed, and that the people have the right to change them if they do not work for the people's benefit.

That the people have the right and the corresponding duty to throw off a government which works permanently to the injury of the governed, and to provide new guards for their future security.

As to No. 2.

Paragraph 5. The king has refused laws unless the right of representation in the legislature be abandoned.

Par. 6. He has called legislatures to meet at unusual places. This reminds us of Magna Charta.

Par. 7. The king has dissolved representative houses for resisting his invasions on the rights of the people.

Par. 8. Has not called new legislatures for a long time, thus destroying the representative principle and endangering the state, and the legislative power has returned to the people at large.

Par. 9. He has endeavored to prevent growing population, and refused to pass laws to encourage their migrations.1 Par. 10. Has prevented good administration of justice. Par. II. The king has made judges depend on his will. Par. 12. King appointed unnecessary number of officers. Par. 13. Kept standing armies in peace without consent of legislature.

Par. 14. King endeavored to make the army superior to the civil power.

Par. 15. Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution.

Par. 16. Quartered large bodies of troops among us.

Par. 17. Protecting the soldiers when they had killed citi

zens.

Par. 18. Interfering with our free trade.

Par. 19. Imposing taxes without our consent.

Par. 20. Deprived us of trial by jury.

Par. 21. Has removed us from our natural courts.

Par. 22. And many more, all charging the king with having acted against established law and charters, with introducing foreign mercenaries, and altogether injuring the Americans instead of protecting them.

It is indifferent here whether the king of England represents the British government and the "brethren" of the great polity, from which the Americans now declared themselves forever separate. These charges against the king are important in this place, as indicative of what the patriots of that time considered of elementary importance and fundamental necessity in a sound system of civil liberty, and a polity of freemen founded upon the principles which British experience and patriotism, through good periods and all, had proved necessary.

The word inhabitant was also used in New Jersey. The student will do well to make himself acquainted with the different meaning or the actual history of the words inhabitant, subject, citizen, and exclusion of all, except citizen, in the course of time. It has created injury and mischief, I think, that the Constitution knows the word citizen alone, so that there is no word in our terminology to designate the person who is

More about this paragraph in the next section.