LIBERTY. This word is the Latin libertas. The corresponding Teutonic word is frcihei I, or, as it appears in English, freedom.
Liberty and freedom are familiar words with indefinite meanings. " Liber; the adjective which corresponds to the noun " libertas," is properly opposed to " serous," or slave; and libertas is the status of a freemen, as opposed to eervitus, or the statue of a slave. This division of freemen (liberi) and slaves (servi) was the fundamental division of persons in the Roman LAW (Gains, i. 9). This word liberty, then, in its origin, indicates merely the personal statue of a man as contrasted with the condition of servitude. In Greek the like opposition is ex premed by two other words (areekrer 80i3aer). But the word libertas had also a political meaning among de Romans. When the Romans had ejected their last king, they considered that they had obtained their liberty. (Livy, ii. 1.) The political moaning of libertas (liberty) was derived from the contrast of liberty and servitude in the person of individuals; and if the mass of a nation were subjected to the arbitrary rule of one man, that was considered a kind of servitude, and the deliverance from it was called libertas, a term which in this sense is clearly derived from the notion of liberty as obtained by him who was once a slave.
In the Greek writers the words (arming and aoiAor), which respec tively signify master and slave, were also applied in a political sense to signify monarch and subject. The Persian king was master (aseinirns) and his subjects were slaves (aoiAou).
The political sense then of liberty and freedom, if traced to its source, is founded on the notions of personal liberty as contrasted with personal servitude. He who became free from being a slave in a republic became a member of the state, in which he formerly had no political existence. It is implied by the circuuletance of his becoming free that he became a citizen, though positive law, as among the Romans, might limit the degree in which he thereby obtained citizen ship. [CITIZEN.] Slavery may and did exist in many states of antiquity which were under monarchical or tyrannical rule; but he who was the slave of an individual in any such state, and obtained his freedom, did not thereby become a citizen, but was merely released from the duty that he owed to his master : he still owed together with others the duty of perfect obedience to an individual monarch or tyrant.
The words liberty and freedom, as political terms, have always been used to express a condition of a people in which they are to some degree at least secured against the arbitrary rule of an individual or of a small number of persons; and the word slavery, in its political sense, is applied to nations in which the mass of the people have not reasonable security for their lives and property against the capricious rule of one man or of a number of persons who form a small minority of the whole.
That which is really meant by political freedom and liberty is nothing more than a form of government which shall in some degree at least secure to the people the enjoyment of life and of their property against the tyranny of one man or of a few. Freedom and liberty then are terms which can only be applied to constitutional governments [CONSTITUTION], and to republics, in the proper sense of that term. There is no political liberty or freedom under any other form of government, though under a monarchy, when the administration is good, there may be in many respects more personal freedom than there is in a pure democracy. But the essential quality by which political liberty or freedom is distinguished is simply this : the sovereign power is not in the hands of one or of a small minority, but it is either distributed among the whole community or a considerable part of it.
Political liberty does not exist in some civilised nations in Europe : in France, for instance. Political liberty does not exist in Russia. In some countries where it does not exist, it is the general opinion that its existence would be a benefit to the whole nation. In other countries the mass of the people are still in such a condition political liberty could not exist, for political liberty, as already stated, means that the sovereign power must be in the hands of a large number, and they must possess intelligence enough to enable them to exercise and keep the power ; but there are nations where the mass of the people are too ignorant to exercise or keep any political power.