LIBERTY (Lat. liber, free ; libertas, free dom, liberty). Freedom from restraint. The faculty of willing, and the power of doing what has been willed, witbout influence from without.
A privilege held by grant or prescription, by which some men enjoy greater privileges than ordinary subjects.
A territory with some extraordinary privi lege.
A part of a town or city: as, the Northern Liberties of Philadelphia. See Feunotrao.
Civil liberty is the greatest amount of abso lute liberty which can in the nature of things be equally possessed by every citizen in a state.
The term is frequently used to denote the amount of absolute liberty which is actually enjoyed by the various citizens under the government and laws of the state as admi nistered. 1 Blackstone, Comm. 125.
The fullest political liberty furnishes the best possible guarantee for civil liberty.
Lieber defines civil liberty as guaranteed protection against interference with the inte rests and rights held dear and important by large classes of civilized men, or by all the members of a state, together with an effec tual share in the making and administration of the laws, as the best apparatus to secure that protection, including Blackstone's divi sions of civil and political under this head.
Natural liberty is the right which nature gives to all mankind of dispoting of their persons and property after the manner they judge most consonant to their happiness, cti condition of their acting within the limits of the law of nature and so as not to interfere with an equal exercise of the same rights by other men. Burlam. c. 3, 15 ; 1 Blackstone, Comm. 125. It is called by Lieber social lib erty, and is defined as the protection of unre strained action in as high a degree as the same claim of protection of each individual admits of.
Personal liberty consists in the power of locomotion, of changing situation, or remov ing one's person to whatever place one's in clination may direct, without imprisonment or restraint unless by due course of law. 1 Blackstone, Comm. 134.
Political liberty is an effectual share in the making and administration of the laws. Lie ber, Civ. Lib.
2. Liberty, in its widest sense, means the fa onity of willing, and the power of doing what has been willed without influence from without. It
means self-determination, unrestrainedness of ac tion. Thus defined, one being only can be abso lutely free,—namely, God. So soon as we apply the word liberty to spheres of human action, the term receives a relative meaning, because the power of m in is limited; he is subject to constant influences from without. If the idea of unrestrainedness of ac tion is applied to the social state of man, it receives a. limitation still greater, since the equal olaims of unrestrained action of all necessarily involves the idea of protection againat interference by others. We thus come to the definition, that liberty of so cial man consists in the protection of unrestrained action in as high a degree as the same claim of protection of each individual admits of, or in the most efficient protection of his rights, claims, inte rests, as man or citizen, or of hie humanity, mani fested as a social being. (See RIGHT.) The word liberty, applied to men in their political state, may be viewed with referenoe to the state as I whole, and in this case means the independence of the state, of other states (see AUTONOMY); or it may have reference to the relaiion of the citizen to the government, in which case it is called political or civil liberty; or it may have reference to the status of a man as a political being, oontradistinguished from him who ie not oonsidered master over his body, will, or labor,—the slave. This is called personal liberty, which, as a matter of course, in cludes freedom from prison.
3. Lieber, in his work on Civil Liberty, calls that system which was evolved in England, and forms the basis of liberty in the countries settled by English people, Anglican liberty. The princi pal guarantees, according to him, are:— I. National independence. There must be no foreign interference. The country must have the right and power of establishing the government it thinks hest.
II. Individual liberty, and, as belonging to it, personal liberty, or the great habeas.oerpus prin ciple, and the prohibition of genersl warrants of arrest. The right of hail belongs also to thia head.