Now, as municipal law is a rule of civil conduct, commanding what is right, and prohibiting what is wrong; or as Cicero, and after him our Bracton, have expreffed it, fanétio jufta, jubens honefta et prohibens contraria; it follows, that the primary and principal objects of the law are RIGHTS and WRONGS. In the profecution therefore of these commentaries, I fhall follow this very simple and obvious divifion; and shall in the first place confider the rights that are commanded, and secondly the wrongs that are forbidden, by the laws of England.

RIGHTS are however liable to another fubdivifion: being either, first, thofe which concern and are annexed to the perfons of men, and are then called jura perfonarum or the rights of perfons; or they are, fecondly, fuch as a man may acquire over external objects, or things unconnected with his person, which are ftiled jura rerum or the rights of things. Wrongs alfo are divisible into, first, private wrongs, which, being an infringement merely of particular rights, concern individuals only, and are called civil injuries; and fecondly, public wrongs, which, being a breach of general and public rights, affect the whole community, and are called crimes and mifdemefnors.

THE objects of the laws of England falling into this fourfold divifion, the prefent commentaries will therefore confift of the four following parts: 1. The rights of persons; with the means whereby fuch rights may be either acquired or loft. 2. The rights of things; with the means alfo of acquiring and lofing them. 3. Private wrongs, or civil injuries; with the means of redreffing them by law. 4. Public wrongs, or crimes and mifdemefnors; with the means of prevention and punishment (1).

(1) The distinction between private wrongs and public wrongs is more intelligible, and more accurately limited by the nature of the fubjects, than the distinction between the rights of things, and the rights of perfons for all rights whatever must be the rights of

We are now, firft, to confider the rights of perfons; with the means of acquiring and lofing them.

Now the rights of persons that are commanded to be ob-[123] ferved by the municipal law are of two forts: first, fuch as are due from every citizen, which are ufually called civil duties; and, fecondly, fuch as belong to him, which is the more popular acceptation of rights or jura. Both may indeed be comprized in this latter divifion; for, as all focial duties are of a relative nature, at the same time that they are due from one man, or fet of men, they must also be due to ano ther. But I apprehend it will be more clear and easy, to confider many of them as duties required from, rather than as rights belonging to, particular perfons. Thus, for inftance, allegiance is ufually, and therefore most easily, confidered as the duty of the people, and protection as the duty of the magistrate; and yet they are reciprocally, the rights as

certain perfons to certain things. Every right is annexed to a certain character or relation, which each individual bears in fociety. The rights of kings, lords, judges, hufbands, fathers, heirs, purchafers, and occupants are all dependent upon the respective characters of the claimants. Thefe rights might again be divided into rights to poffefs certain things, and the rights to do certain actions. This latter clafs of rights conftitute powers and authority. But the distinction of rights of perfons and rights of things in the first two volumes of the Commentaries, feems to have no other difference than the antithefis of the expreffion, and that too refting upon a folecism; for the expreion, rights of things, or a right of a horfe, is contrary to the idiom of the English language: we fay, invariably, a right to a thing. The diftinction intended by the learned Judge, in the first two volumes, appears, in a great degree, to be that of the rights of perfons in public Rations, and the rights of perfons in private relations. But as the order of legal fubjects is, in a great measure, arbitrary, and does not admit of that mathematical arrangement, where one propofition generates another, it perhaps would be difficult to discover any method more fatisfactory, than that which the learned Judge has purfued, and which was firft fuggefted by lord C. J. Hale. See Hale's Analyfis of the Law.

well as duties of each other. Allegiance is the right of the magiftrate, and protection the right of the people.

PERSONS alfo are divided by the law into either natural perfons, or artificial. Natural perfons are fuch as the God of nature formed us; artificial are such as are created and devised by human laws for the purposes of fociety and govern ment, which are called corporations or bodies politic.

THE rights of perfons confidered in their natural capacities are alfo of two forts, abfolute, and relative. Abfolute, which are fuch as appertain and belong to particular men, merely as individuals or fingle perfons: relative, which are incident to them as members of society, and ftanding in various relations to each other. The first, that is, abfolute rights, will be the fubject of the present chapter.

By the abfolute rights of individuals we mean those which are fo in their primary and ftricteft fenfe; fuch as would belong to their perfons merely in a state of nature, and which every man is entitled to enjoy, whether out of fociety or in it. But with regard to the abfolute duties, which man is bound [124] to perform confidered as a mere individual, it is not to be ex

pected that any human municipal law fhould at all explain or enforce them. For the end and intent of fuch laws being only to regulate the behaviour of mankind, as they are members of fociety, and ftand in various relations to each other, they have confequently no concern with any other but focial or relative duties. Let a man therefore be ever fo abandoned in his principles, or vitious in his practice, provided he keeps his wickednefs to himself, and does not offend against the rules of public decency, he is out of the reach of human laws. But if he makes his vices public, though they be such as feem principally to affect himself, (as drunkenness, or the like,) they then become, by the bad example they fet, of pernicious effects to society; and therefore it is then the bufinefs of human laws to correct them. Here the circumftance of publication is what alters the nature of the cafe.

Public fobriety is a relative duty, and therefore enjoined by our laws; private fobriety is an abfolute duty, which, whether it be performed or not, human tribunals can never know; and therefore they can never enforce it by any civil fanction (2). But with refpect to rights, the cafe is different. Human laws define and enforce as well thofe rights which belong to a man confidered as an individual, as thofe which. belong to him confidered as related to others.

FOR the principal aim of fociety is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of thofe abfolute rights, which were vefted in them by the immutable laws of nature; but which could not be preferved in peace without that mutual affiftance and intercourfe, which is gained by the inftitution of friendly and focial communities. Hence it follows, that the first and primary end of human laws is to maintain and regulate these abfolute rights of individuals. Such rights as are social and relative refult from, and are pofterior to, the formation of itates and focieties: fo that to maintain and regulate thefe, is clearly a fubfequent confideration. And therefore the principal view of human laws is, or ought always to be, to explain, protect, and enforce fuch rights as are abfolute, which in themselves are few and fimple; and then fuch rights as are [125] relative, which, arifing from a variety of connexions, will be far more numerous and more complicated. These will take up a greater space in any code of laws, and hence may appear to be more attended to, though in reality they are not, than the rights of the former kind. Let us therefore proceed

(2) This diftinction feems to convey a doctrine that can hardly bear examination, or be reconciled with found law and morality. The circumftance of publication as evidence of fhameless profligacy and hardened depravity, may alter the nature of the punishment, but cannot alter the intrinsic criminality of the vicious act. Whatever is pernicious to fociety as an example, must neceffarily be vicious and deftructive in itself. What is ruinous and criminal to repeat and follow, must also be ruinous and criminal to commence. Human laws prohibit every where the guilty action, but punishment can only be the confequence of detection.

to examine how far all laws ought, and how far the laws of England actually do, take notice of these absolute rights, and provide for their lasting security.

THE abfolute rights of man, confidered as a free agent, endowed with difcernment to know good from evil, and with power of choofing those measures which appear to him to be most desirable, are usually fummed up in one general appellation, and denominated the natural liberty of mankind. This natural liberty confifts properly in a power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or 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 he endued him with the faculty of free-will. But every man, when he enters into fociety, gives up a part of his natural liberty, as the price of so valuable a purchase; and, in confideration of receiving the advantages of mutual commerce, obliges himself to conform to thofe laws, which the community has thought proper to establish. And this fpecies of legal obedience and conformity is infinitely more defirable than that wild and favage liberty which is facrificed to obtain it. For no man, that confiders a moment, would wish to retain the abfolute and uncontrolled power of doing whatever he pleases: the confequence of which is, that every other man would also have the fame power; and then there would be no fecurity to individuals in any of the enjoyments of life. Political therefore, or civil liberty, which is that of a member of fociety, is no other than natural liberty fo far reftrained by human laws (and no farther) as is neceffary and expedient for the general advantage of the public. Hence we may collect that the law, which reftrains a man from doing mif[126] chief to his fellow-citizens, though it diminishes the natural, increases the civil liberty of mankind; but that every wanton and caufelefs reftraint of the will of the fubject, whether practised by a monarch, a nobility, or a popular affembly, is a degree of tyranny: nay, that even laws themselves, whe

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