A government of the whole, therefore, must necessarily confine
itself to the administration of such principles of law as all the
people, who contribute to the support of the government, can
comprehend and see the justice of. And it can be confined within
those limits only by allowing the jurors, who represent all the
parties to the compact, to judge of the law, and the justice of
the law, in all cases whatsoever. And if any justice be left
undone, under these circumstances, it is a justice for which the
nature of the association does not provide, which the association
does not undertake to do, and which, as an association, it is
under no obligation to do.
The people at large, the unlearned and common people, have
certainly an indisputable right to associate for the establishment
and maintenance of such a government as they themselves see the
justice of, and feel the need of, for the promotion of their own
interests, and the safety of their own rights, without at the same
time surrendering all their property, liberty, and rights into the
hands of men, who, under the pretence of a superior and
incomprehensible knowledge of justice, may dispose of such
property, liberties, and rights, in a manner to suit their own
selfish and dishonest purposes.
If a government were to be established and supported solely by
that portion of the people who lay claim to superior knowledge,
there would be some consistency in their saying that the common
people should not be received as jurors, with power to judge of
the justice of the laws. But so long as the whole people (or all
the male adults) are presumed to be voluntary parties to the
government, and voluntary contributors to it support, there is no
consistency in refusing to any one of them more than to another
the right to sit as juror, with full power to decide for himself
whether any law that is proposed to be enforced in any particular
case, be within the objects of the association.
The conclusion, therefore, is, that, in a government formed by
voluntary association, or on the theory of voluntary association,
and voluntary support, (as all the North American governments
are,) no law can rightfully be enforced by the association in its
corporate capacity, against the goods, rights, or person of any
individual, except it be such as all the members of the
association agree that it may enforce. To enforce any other law,
to the extent of taking a man's goods, rights, or person, would be
making some of the parties to the association accomplices in what
they regard as acts of injustice. It would also be making them
consent to what they regard as the destruction of their own
rights. These are things which no legitimate system or theory of
government can require of any of the parties to it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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