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.
The condition of one who may exercise his natural powers as he wills is not known in jurisprudence, except as the characteristic of those who hold the supreme potver of the state. The freedom which one may have by his individual strength resembles this power in kind, and is no part of legal freedom. The legal right of one person involves correl ative obligations on others. All persons must be restricted by those obligations which are essential to the freedom of others ; 2 Harr. Cond. La. 208; but these are not in consistent with the possession of rights which may be enjoyed equally by all. Such obligations constitute a condition opposed to freedom only as things which mutually sup pose and require each other. Where the law imposes obligations incompatible with the possession of such rights as might be equally enjoyed by all, a condition arises which is contrary to freedom, see BONDAGE, and the condition of those who hold the rights cor relative 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 un like relations, since the actions of all can not be the same. In the possession of rela tive rights they must be unequal. But indi vidual (absolute) rights, which exist in re lations towards the community in general, and capacity for relative rights in domestic relations, may be attributed to all in the same circumstances of natural condition. It is in the possession of these rights and this capacity that this freedom exists. As thus defined, it comprehends freedom in the nar rower sense, as the greater includes the less; and when attributed to all who enjoy free dom in the narrower sense, as at the present day in the greater part of Europe and for merly in the free states of the Union, the latter is not distinguished as a distinct con dition. But some who enjoy personal liberty might yet be so restricted in the acquisition and use of property, so unprotected in per son and limited in the exercise of relative rights, that their condition would be free dom in the narrower sense only. During the
middle ages, in Europe, it was possible to discriminate the existing free conditions as thus different ; and the restrictions formerly imposed on free colored persons in the slave holding states of the Union created a similar distinction between their freedom and that which, in all the states, was attributed to all persons of white race.
Freedom, in either sense, is a condition 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 ir responsible sovereign power, freedom, in the larger sense above described, may be called civil freedom, from the fact that such guar antee becomes the public law of the state. Such freedom acquires specific character from the particular law of some one country, and becomes the topic of legal science in the juridical application of the guarantees by which the several rights incident to it are maintained. This constitutes a large portion of the jurisprudence of modern states, and embraces, particularly in England and Amer ica, the public or constitutional law. The bills of rights in American constitutions, with their great original, Magna Charta, are the written evidences of the most fundamen tal of these guarantees. The provisions 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 ; Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. (U. S.) 243, 8 L. Ed. 672; Sedges. Const. 597. It has been judicially de clared that a person "held to service or labor in one state under the laws thereof escaping into another" is not protected by any of these provisions, but may be delivered up, by na tional 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 removed from such state by private claimant, without regard either to the, laws of such state or the acts of congress ; Bank of Augusta v. Earle, 13 Pet. (U. S.) 597,10 L. Ed. 274.
The other guarantees of freedom in either sense are considered under the titles EVI