4. Rights are claims of moral beings upon ene another : when we speak of rights to certain things, they are, strictly speaking, claims of persons on persons,—in the case of property, for instance, the claim of exclnding others from possessing it. The idea of right indicates an ethical relation, sod all moral relations may be infringed; claims may be made and established by law which are wrong in themselves and destitute of a corollary obligation; they aro like every ether wroug done by society ot government; they prove nothing concerning the origin or essential character of rights. On. tbe ether hand, claims are gradually more clearly acknowledged, and new ones, which were not per. ceive.d io early periods, are for the firat time per ceived, and surrounded with legislative pretection, as civilization adv,ances. Thus,,original rights, or the ,rights of man, are not meant to be claims which man has always perceived or insisted upoo or protected, but those claims which, according to the person who uses the term, logically flow from the necessity of the physical and moral existence cf man ; for man is born to be a ma,n,—that is, to lead abunian existecee. They have been called inalien able rights ; bet they have been alienated, and many of them are not perceived for long periods. Lieber, m his Political Ethice, calls them primordial Tights : he means rights, directly flawing from the nature of man, ,developed by civilization, aad always showing themselves clearer and clearer as ,society advances. He enumerates, as such espcel ally, the following : the right of protection; the right of personal freedpm,—that is,the claim of un restricted action, except se far as the same claim of others necessitates restriction : these two rights involve the right to have juatice done by tha public administration of justice, the right of pro duction and exchange (the right of property), the right of free locomotien and emigration, the right of communion in speech, letter, print, the right of worship, the right of influencing or sharing in the legislation. All political eivilization steadily tends to bring out these rights clearer and clearer, while in the course of this civilization, from its incipiency, with its relapses, ,they appear mere or less de veloped in different periods and frequently wholly in abeyance: nevertheless, they have their origin in the personality of man as a social being.
Publicists and jurists have made the following further distinction of rights: 5. Rights are perfect and imperfect. When the things which we have a right to possess, or the. actions we have a right to do, are or may be fixed and determinate, the right is a ,pcifect one ; but when the thing or the actions. are vague and indeterminate,,. the right is an imperfect one. If a man demand his property which is withheld from him, the right that supports his demand is a perfec+ one, because the thing demanded is or may be fixed and determinate ; but if a poor man ask relief from those from whem he has reason to eXpect it, the right which supports his petition is an imperfect ono, because.the relief which he expects is a vague, indeter minate thing,. Rutherforth, Inst. c. 2, 4;
Grotius, lib. 1, c. 1, 4.
6. Rights are also absolute and qualified. A man has an absolute right to recover property which belongs to him; an agent has a quali fied right to recover such property when it had been intrusted to his care, and which has been unlawfully taken out of his posses sion.
Rights might with propriety be also divided into natural . and ciVil rights ; but as all the rights which man has received from nature have been modified and acquired anew from the civil law, it is more proper, when con sidering their object, to divide them into political and civil rights.
7. Political' rights consist in the power to participate, directly or indirectly, in the este bliShment or 'management of government. These political rights are fixed by the con stitution. Every citizen has the right of voting for public officers, and of being elected: these are the political rights which the humblest citizen possesses.
Civil rights' are those which have no rela tion to the establishment, sup_port, or manage ment of the government. These consist in thepower of acquiring and enjoying property, of exercising the paternal and marital powers, and the like. It will be observed that every one, unless deprived of them by a sentence of civil death; is in the enjoyment of hie civil rights,—which is not the ease with political rights; for an alien, for example, has no political, although in the full enjoy ment of his civil, rights.
S. These latter rights are divided into absolute and relative. The absolute rights of mankind may he reduced to three prin cipal or primary articles: the right of per sonal security, which consists in a person's legal and uninterrupted enjoyment of his life, hie limbs, his body, his health, and his 'reputation ; the right of personal liberty, which consists in the power of locomotion, of changing situation or removing one's per son to whatsoever place one's inclination may direct, without any restraint unless by due course of law ; the right of property, which consists in the free use, enjoyment, and dis posal of all his acquisitions, without any con trol or diminution save' ottly.by the laws of the land. 1 Blackstone, Comm: 124-139.
9. The relative rights are public or private: the first are those which subsist between the people and the government; as, the right of protection on the part of the people, and the right of allegiance which due by the people to the government ; the second are the reci procal rights of husband and wife, parent and child, Ruardian and ward, and master and servant.
, Rights are also' divided into legal and equitable. The former are those where the party has the legal title to a thing ; and in that case his remedy for an infringement of it is by an action in a court of law. Al. though the person holding the legal title may have no actual interest, but hold only as trustee, the suit must be in his name, and not, in general, in that of the eestui que trust. 1 East, 497 ; 8 Term,332 ; 1 Saund, 158, n. 1 ; 2 Bingh. 20. The latter, or equitable rights, are those which may be enforced in a Court of equity by the eestui que trust. See. generally, Bouvier, Inst. Index.