656 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



more in touch with reality — a voluntary association of citizens with 

 equal rights. What they expected of it was not so transcendent of 

 the limits of the possible — protection in the enjoyment of those 

 rights. In the Declaration of Independence, so much sneered at 

 and yet so deeply rooted in the truths of social science, they an- 

 nounced that all men were " endowed by their Creator with certain 

 unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pur- 

 suit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are in- 

 stituted, . . . deriving their just powers from the consent of the 

 governed." " All men," said one of the Bills of Rights to be found 

 in the State Constitutions that followed in the wake of the Declara- 

 tion, " are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain 

 inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, 

 they can not by any compact deprive or divest their posterity — name- 

 ly, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring 

 and possessing property, and of pursuing and obtaining happiness 

 and safety." * ]STo state socialism here; no feudal regulation of in- 

 dustry or morals : only devotion to a freedom, indispensable to hap- 

 piness and social development, and a demand for its protection. 



Upon the meeting of the convention called to frame a govern- 

 ment for the territory wrested from British despotism, there was no 

 purpose in the minds of the delegates more distinct than to insure 

 this protection. Indeed, it was paramount; it dominated every 

 other thought. To " establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, 

 provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and 

 secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity " — such 

 is the simple but noble and adequate motive they ascribed to them- 

 selves, a motive hitherto absent from the world of political thought 

 and action. As if apprehensive that these patriots and statesmen 

 had not been sufficiently explicit to guard against despotism, as 

 odious in the government of the many as of the one, the people de- 

 manded the amendment that no person shall " be deprived of life, 

 liberty, or property without due process of law; nor shall private 

 property be taken for public use without just compensation." Later, 

 the apprehension still existing that the provision made to " secure the 

 blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity " was still imper- 

 fect, another amendment was added. " No State," it says, putting a 

 restraint upon a despot that has exercised a power far more destruc- 

 tive of freedom than that feared by the fiercest opponent of the Fed- 

 eral Government, " shall make or enforce any law which shall 

 abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, 

 nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property 



* Virginia Constitution of 17*76. 



