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Show Uncle 5aeli and ' ' Jack closed his last dialogue by explaining ex-plaining to his nephew the real significance sig-nificance of liberty, its limits and privileges. priv-ileges. The nephew's ideas of rights being hazy, he asks the uncle for an explanation. Vested rights, to which . the nephew objects, explained and de-; de-; fended by the uncle. j j "Be that as it may, it is nothing to our present purpose. The question re- lates to the rights of the incumbent of -the office. Now that he is elected to fill that office, and during the term for. ' which he has been elected, has not j General Pierce certain vested rights j w hich no other man in the world has I certain exclusive rights, which during I that period no other man may claim or exercise? If vou say no, you deny his exclusive right to officiate as president, and deny all civil authority and all civil society, even democracy itself; for democracy asserts the right of the people to choose representatives to act in their name, and to clothe each of them with certain special and exclusive exclus-ive powers. If you say yes, you must concede a class of rights not included in the simple natural rights of man as man, that is, civil rights, or, in general gen-eral terms, vested rights. Now, is there freedom in any broad and adequate sense of the term, where there is no security for the free and full exercise of thee vested rights? "1. You know, my dear uncle, that we democrats are opposed to your old-fogy old-fogy doctrine of vested rights. It is in the name of vested rights that tyrants ty-rants reign, and all abuses are perpetuated. perpetu-ated. It is precisely against what are called vested rights of kings and nobilities no-bilities that we rebel, and have sworn eternal hostility. It is in the name of vested rights that the people are enslaved, en-slaved, that social progress is arrested, reforms are resisted, and the noble and the generous friends of the people are martyred. How many of our brothers, free and noble spirits.nvho lived but to emancipate the people, have fallen victims vic-tims to this bloody Dagon of vested rights! Their blood cries to us from the ground to avenge them, and avenge them we will, or die in the attempt." "Be that as it may, it is nothing to our present purpose. The question relates re-lates to the rights of the incumbent of the office. Now that he is elected to fill that office, and during the term for which he has been elected, has not General Peirce certain vested rights which no other man in the. world has certain exclusive rights, which, during that period, no other man may claim or exercise? If you say no, you deny his exclusive right to officiate as president, presi-dent, and deny all civil authority, and all civic society, even democracy itself; for democracy asserts the right of the people to choose representatives to act in. their name, and to clothe each of them w ith certain special and exclusive powers. If you say yes, you must concede con-cede a class of rights not included in the simple natural rights of man as man, that is. civil rights, or, in general terms, vested rights. . Now, is there freedom in any broad and adequate sense of the term,' where there is no security se-curity for the .-free, and full exercise of these vested rights?".., "You know, "my dear uncle, thatve democrats are opposed to your old fogy doctrine of vested rights. It is in the name of vested rights that tyrants reign, and all abuses are perpetuated. It is precisely against what are called vested rights of. kings and nobilities, that we rebel, arid have' sworn eternal hostility. It is in the name of vested rights that the1 people are enslaved, that social progress is arrested, reforms are resisted, and the noble and the generous gen-erous friends of the people are martyred. mar-tyred. How many of our brothe3, free and noble spirits,' who lived but to emancipate the people, have fallen victims vic-tims to this bloody Dagon of vested rights! Their blood cries to us from the ground to avenge them, and avenge them we will, or die in the attempt." "All very fine, my young revolutionist. revolution-ist. But if these rights really are I rights, is it hot they who assert and maintain them that war against the liberty, but you who deny and seek to destroy -them. I understand by liberty the secure possession and enjoyment by ! every man of all his rights, whether natural or civil, and I look upon the man who seeks to rob me of my vested fights, whether he. do it in the name of liberty or any other name, as a ty- j rant and a deserter inkYke.-efij.faoNvb rant and despot in heart and in deed, i You are mistaken, my dear Dick, whyt you say that it is in the name of vested rights, that tyrants reign, for. a tyrant is, by the very force of the word itself, one who has no vested right to reign, and one who exercises the supreme su-preme power in the city or state in opposition op-position to vested rights. Tyrant, as the word is now used, means literally a usurper, one who deprives others of their vested rights, and reigns without any vested rights to reign. It is precisely pre-cisely this fact that has rendered this word universally odious. You revolutionists revolu-tionists are laboring to annihilate all vested rights, and against all such ' rights to grasp and wield the supreme power of the state, and you are consequently conse-quently tyrants in the present strict and proper sense of the word. I catir not agree with you any more when you say that in the name of vested rights the people are enslaved, for it is no slavery to be debarred from robbing the state or individuals of their rights." "But your pretended vested rights are merely usurpations, and in compelling com-pelling those who hold them to abandon aban-don them, we do them no wrong, and are laboring only to restore the just and legitimate order of things." "These vested rights are not usurped, unless they have been illegally assumed, as-sumed, or are in their nature contrary to the natural law. They are held by authority of civil society, and are not assumed in contravention of the civil law, and they are not contrary to the natural law, unless they violate some natural right of man, or some precept of the law of God. What precept of that, law do they violate? 'To what natural right of man as man are they repugnant?" "They are repugnant to the natural rights of equality." 'I am not aware of any such'natural right. AH men - have certain qual rights, for all are equally men; but it does not follow from that fact, that all" have a natural right to equality in all things. Even you yourself would shrink from so gross an absurdity, you do not pretend that all men have an equal right to be of the same height, and that those who are below a certain standard must be stretched, and-those who rise above it must be chopped off." "If, it were so, your head would be in danger. Neither can. you pretend that all have a natural right to equality equal-ity of intellect or genuine. All have an equal natural right to property, but not, therefore, to equal property. All have an equal natural right to marry, but not, therefore, an equal right to demand of every woman the rights of a husband. Everyone has an equal right to be himself, but not to be another; an-other; an equal to his own, but not that his own shall be equal to every other man's own. Up to a certain point all men have equal rights, and are to be treated by general and civil society as equals; that is, the rights which we possess in virtue of our simple humanity human-ity on as men are equal. These rights I hold to be sacred and inviolable, and there is no true liberty, where they are not equally recognized and secured in the case of every one. But beyond these are the rights of individuals, not. , simply as men, but as such or such V men. These rights are unequal, be- cause men as such and such men are I unequal; but these contravene not the other rights, which are equal. . The equal rights are general," the others are special, but '.he special does not contradict con-tradict the general. I do John Smith no wrong w hen I employ instead of him Bill Thompson to be my coachman. I do no wrong to Peter Hagarty's nephew in leaving my estate to my own nephew instead of leaving it to him j although by so doing I make my nephew a rich man, and leave Peter's poor; for Peter's hephew has no natural nat-ural or acquired right to my estate. If he is suffering, I am bound by the common ties of humanity and religion to relieve him, but not to enrich him. "So you see, dear Dick, that your dream that men have a natural right to equality in all things is a dream, and a very silly dream, not worth relating. re-lating. There are two classes f rights, natural rights and civil rights, or the rights of men as men and the rights of men as members of society, both as members of natural society and of civil and religious society. You and your associates recognize only the first class of rights, and regard liberty as restricted to the free and full exercise of them, and as a consequence, their right to make war on all other rights and to rob their possessors of them. Here is where you are wrong, and here is why I cannot hold you to be true friends of liberty, but its enemies rather. rath-er. Your views of what liberty is are too superficial and narrow'. You do not mean enough by liberty to satisfy me. Your liberty would leave me only a small portion of my rights, and I demand de-mand a liberty which leaves me in full possession of all my rights. You claim the right in the name of liberty to dispossess dis-possess me of all my vested rights, and in so far you make liberty a pretext pre-text for robbery and oppression. We whom you call old fogies have a broader and deeper love of liberty than you have. "We assert the natural and equal rights of men as energetically as you do, that we do not make common cause with you. Are w-e not men as well as you? And is not whatever is human as near to us as to you? Who gave you youngsters the monopoly of humanity? hu-manity? Who made you more aflve to wrongs and outrages upon a fellow-man fellow-man than we are? Do you imagine, because age thins the blood and abates the fire of passion, that it dries up the affections of the heart and blunts the science of justice? Foolish boy, wait till you are old, and youvill learn that the heart of old beats as warm and as lovingly as that of the young, and that nothing pertaining to the soul ever becomes sear and yellow. We go not with you; we oppose you, because we hold vested rights as sacred and inviolable in-violable as the natural rights themselves, them-selves, in which they have their origin and foundation, and because you trample tram-ple on them and are banded together to destroy them, and thus to take away all our protection even for our natural rights. We love liberty too much and are too determined to maintain it in its broadest and fullest sense to be your accomplices. It is a3 the friends of liberty, it is in the name of liberty, a sacred name for us, and which you only profane, that we oppose you and resist to the utmost your revolutionary schemes, and your anti-liberal, your tyrannical movements." |