For purposes of convenience and justice alike, in all well governed communities, the natural right of citizens are held in abeyance and subject to condi tional limitations as having lost some portion of their absolute character. This is but an affirmance of the doctrine that every Individual in order to live peacefully in society must submit to some abridgment of his natural right ; for any acknowl= edgment of government, says Brownson, implies that the citizen consents to submit his will to that of a governing will located in the administration of the state ; Am. Republic ; Ord. Coast. Leg: Constitutional guarantees are the last and 'best fruits of civil liberty. The bulwarks of civil liberty consist of public acts passed 1or the purpose of de fining and regulating the exercise of the sovereign powers of the state. It is only in this way that the personal rights of the citizen tan be secured against invasion by the supreme authority. These acts are the guarantees of the good faith of the citizens to wards each other and towards the common sover eignty under which they are united. They con sist of grants of power together with JiMitatiptis upon its exercise. Part of these rules being un written form the common law of the land, an part consist of positive laws known as constitutional provisions which may be enforced in competent tribunals ; Ord. Const. Leg. 168.
1; Liberties are nothing until they have. become rights—positive rights formally recognized and con secrated. Rights, even when recognized, are noth ing so long as they are not entrenched within antees. And guarantees are nothing so long as they are not maintained by forces independent of them in the limit of their right. Convert liberties into rights—surround rights by guarantees—entrust the keeping these guarantees to forces capable of main taining them. Such are the successive steps in the progress of free government. 1 Guizot, Rep. Gov. Lect. 6.
"As soon as any part of a person's conduct. affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over It." Mill, Liberty, c. 4.
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 Eng lish people, Anglican .liberty. The principal guar antees, according to him, are: 1. National independence. There must be no foreign interference. The country must have the right and power of establishing the government it thinks .best.
2. individual liberty, and, as belonging to it, per sonal liberty, or the great habeas corpus principle, and the prohibition of .general warrants of arrest. The right of belongs also to this head.
S. A well-secured penal trial, of which the most Important is trial for high treason.
4. The freedom of communion, locomotion, and emigration.
5. Liberty of conscience. The United States con stitution and the constitutions of all the states have provisions prohibiting any interference in matters of religion.
6. Protection of ,incliyidual property, which re quires unrestrained' .action' in producing and ex changing, the -prohibition of unfair monopoilea, commercial freedom, and the guarantee that no property shall be taken except in the course of law, the principle that taxation shall only be with the consent of the tax-payer, and shall be levied for short periods only, and the exclusion of confiscation.
7. Supremacy of the law. The law must not, how ever, violate any superior law or civil principle, nor intuit it be an ex pint facto law. The executive must not possess the power of declaring martial law, which is merely a suspension of all law. In extreme cases, parliament. in England and congress in the United States can pass an act suspending the privilege of habeaa corpus.
8. Every officer must be responsible to the person affected for the legality of his act ; and no act must be done for which some one is not responsible.
9. It has been deemed necessary in the Bill of Righta and the American constitution apecially to refer to the quartering of 'soldiers as a dangerous weapon in the hands of the executive. .
10. The military • force must be strictly submitted to the law, and the citizen should have the -right to bear arms.
11. The right of petitioning, and the right of meeting and considering public matters, and of organizing into associations fdr any lawful purposes, are important guarantees of civil liberty.
The following guaranteea relate more especially to the government of a free country and the char acter of its polity: 12. Publicity of public business in all its branches, Whether legislative, judicial, written, or oral.
13. The supremacy of the law, or the protection the absolutism of one, of several, or of the majority, requires . other guarantees. It is neces sary that the public funds be, under close and effi cient popular control ; they should therefore be chiefly in the hands of the popular branch, of the legislature, never of the executive. Appropriations should'also be for distinct purposes and short times.
14. It is further necessary that the power of mak ing war 'reside with the people, and not with the elednutiva. A declaration of war in the United States is' an act of congress.
15. The supremacy of the law requires, alao, not only the protection of the minority„but the protec tion, of the majority against the rule of a factious minority or cabal.