LIBERTY OF THE INDIVIDUAL. In dividual liberty has reference to a sphere of ac tion in which the individual is referred to his own will so far as the limitations of Government are concerned. Viewed from one side it consists of urn ioinOnitics or exemptions from the operation of governmental power; looked at from the other side it consists of positive rights which it is the duty of the Government to enforce and protect. While the content of individual liberty varies among races, the 'Western nations have reached a. substantial consensus in regard to its essentials. It now generally includes freedom of person and of property, freedom of conscience and its expression, freedom of opinion and its expres sion, subject to the restrictions everywhere imposed by the law of libel and slander, and equality before the law. Besides this sphere. which is now practically universal, a still wider realm of liberty has !wen created in many States, and is embodied in their constitutions. In the Constitution of the United States, it in eludes the right of assembly for the purpose of petitioning the Government for redress of griev ances, the right of bearing arms, immunity from the quartering of soldiers in one's house. immu nity from unreasonable searches, immunity from prosecution by the Government except in accord with usages and procedure which have been in common use from time immemorial. In States
having the federal system of government it is necessary to provide a double sphere of liberty for the individual; one against the operation of the general Government, and one against the operation of the local governments. In the United States the great source of individual liberty is the Constitution. In fact, the American Consti tution is quite as much an instrument of liberty as of government. The national Constitution and all of the State constitutions, with one or two exceptions, have elahorate hills of rights in which a sphere of liberty is marked out and upon which the Government is forbidden to encroach or to permit any individual to encroach. The same feature appears in modified form in the German Imperial, the Swiss, and the Prussian constitutions, hut not in the Constitution of the French Republic or those of the remaining Euro pean States. The chief guarantee of individual liberty in the United States is the power of final interpretation of the Constitution by the Supreme Court. and the power of Congress to impeach and remove all civil officers of the United States.