The condition Of a private person who is legally secured in the enjoyment of those rights of action, in social relations, which might be equally enjoyed by all private per sons.
7. The condition of one who may exercise his na tural powers as he wills is not known in jurispru dence, except as the characteristic of those who hold the supreme power of the state. The freedom Which one may have by his individual strength re sembles this power in kind, and is no part of legal freedom. The legal right of one person involves correlative obligations on others. All persons must be restricted by those obligations which are essen tial to the freedom of others, 2 Harr. Cond. La. 208; but these are not inconsistent with the pos.. session of rights which may be enjoyed equally by all. Such obligations constitute a condition op.. posed to freedom only as things which mutually suppose and require each other. Where the law imposes obligations' incompatible with the posses sion of such rights as might be equally enjoyed by all, a condition arises which is contrary to free dom, see BONDAGE, and the condition of those who hold the rights correlative to such obligations becomes suPerior to freedom, as above defined, or is merged in the superiority of a class or caste. The rights and obligations of all cannot be alike; men must stand towards each other in unlike dons, since the actions of all cannot be the same. In the possession of relative rights they must be unequal. But individual (absolute) rights, which exist in relations towards the community in gene ral, and capacity for relative, tights in domestic relations, may be attributed to all in the same cir cumstances of natural condition. It is in the pos session of these rights and this capacity that this freedom exists. As thus defined, it comprehends freedom in the narrower sense, as the greater in cludes the less; and when attributed to all who enjoy freedom in the narrower sense, as at the pre sent day in the greater part of Europe and in the non-slaveholding states of the Union, the latter is not distinguished as a distinct condition. But some who enjoy personal liberty might yet be so restricted in the acquisition and use of so unprotected in person and limited in tho exercise of relative rights, that their condition would be freedom in the narrower sense only. During the middle ages, in Europe, it was possible to discrimi nate the existing free conditions as thus different; and the restrictions imposed on free colored persons in the slaveholding states of the Union create a similar distinction between their freedom and that which, in all the states, is attributed to all persons of white race.
S. Freedom, in either sense, is a oandition which may exist anywhere, under the civil power ; but its permanency will depend on the guarantees by which it is defended. These are of infinite variety. In connection with a high degree of guarantee against irresponsible sovereign power, freedom, in the larger sense above described, may be called civil freedom, ,from the fact that such guarantee becomes the public law of the state. Such free: dom acquires specific character from the particular law of some one country, and becomes the topic of legal science in the juridical application of the gua rantees by which the several rights incident to it are maintained. This constitutes a large portion
of the jurisprudence of modern states, and em braces, particularly in England and America, the public or oonstitutional law. The bills of rights in American constitutions, with their great original, Magna Charts, are the written evidences of the most fundamental of these guarantees. The provi sions of the constitution of the United States which have this character operate against powers 'held by the national government; but not against those reserved to the states. 7 Pet. 243; Sedgwick, Coast. 597. It has been judicially declared that a person "held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof escaping into another" is not pro tected by any of these provisions, hut may be deli vered up, by national authority, to a claimant, for removal from the state in which he is found, in any method congress may direct, and that any one claimed as such fugitive may be seized and re moved from such state by a private claimant, with out regard either to the laws of such state or the 'acts of congress. 13 Pet. 597.
9. The other guarantees of freedom in either sense are considered under the titles EVIDENCE, ARREST, BAIL, TRIAL, HABEAS CORPUS, HOMINE REPLEGIANDO.
Irresponsible superiority, whether of one or of many, is necessarily antagonistic to freedom in others. Yet freedom rests on law, and law on the supreme power of some state. The possession of this power involves a liberty of- action; • hut its possession by a body of persons, each one of whom must submit to the will of the majority, is not in itself a guarantee of the freedom oi any one individual among them. Still, the more equally this power is distributed among those who arc thus individually subject, 'the more their indiiidual liberty of action in the exercise of this power ap proximates to a legal right,—though one beyond any incident to civil freedom as above defined, and its possession may be said to constitute politi cal freedom, so far as that may be ascribed to pri vate persons which is more properly ascribed to communities. In proportion as this right is ex tended to the individual members of a community, it becomes a guarantee of civil freedom, by making a delegation of the power of the whole body to a representative government possible and even ne cessary, which government may be limited in its action by customary or written law. Thus, the 'political liberties of private persons and their civil 'freedom become intimately connected ; though political and civil freedom are not necessarily co existent. 1 Shea's-wood, Blackst. Comm. 6, n., 127, n.
la. Political freedom is to be studied in the public law of constitutional states, and, in England and America, particularly in those- provisions in the hills of rights which affect the subject more in his relations towards the government than in his relations towards other private persons. See Lt