i 
274. on the constitution. Fune 24% 
pears to be too absurd to require a serious answer, yet, 
when the |phrenzy runs high, jeven absurdities, must 
be treated with respect. Where every person claims 2 
right to decide, inevery case, according to his own per- 
sonal feelings at the time, therecan surely be no pow- 
er authorised to force his opinions zz any casé to bend 
to those of another person. If he had even given his 
consent to delegate another in his stead, he still must 
retain the ‘* wnalienable right” of annulling that con- 
sent, as soon as he fhall think he sees reason to bes 
lieve it was improperly granted. Admitting therefore | 
these claims of ‘‘ the unalienable rights of man,’”’ in 
their fui extent, all government must cease, and 
universal anarchy must ensue. 
_ All government must necefsarily be compulsive ; 
and consequently, if it isto operate at all, it must tend 
to curtail these supposed ‘‘ unalienable rights of man.”? 
Ifa man isto be punifhed for theft, or any other 
crime, this punifhment will not, most afsuredly, take 
place with his own good will. He must be compel 
led to submit. But if the power to compel him cane 
not, with justice, be lodged any where, such punifh- 
ment can only be deemed a tyrannical exertion of pow. 
er, not a strict distribution of justice. Every punifh- 
ment, every law even prescribing that punifhment, 
must be deemed a tyrannical infraction of the 
“* rights of man.” Had the individual even consen- 
téd to the very law itself, the case would not be 
altered. He might only have given his consent to it 
at the time, because he believed it then to be just; 
but now, that he sees reason to think otherwise, it can- 
with no consistency of reasoning, be forced upon him, 
