But we will be told that there is an “equality of rights.” Here is another absurd phrase, which as generally applied is false or meaningless. By equality of rights people generally refer to personal rights such as the right to life, to personal liberty, etc. But there is no point of resemblance, no analogy even, between the character of such a right and of the asserted right to suffrage. The latter is a claim to share with others, and therefore acquired and artificial. The right of a man to his life, however, is not one in which others can share; and all natural rights are of the same general character, absolute, strictly personal and exclusive. The claim to vote rests on an entirely different basis from such; it is social, and involves others and the rights of others, it is a claim to govern; it vitally affects every one else and therefore no man can assert it without the others being consulted, since to do so would infringe upon _their_ social rights. No such right can possibly be an original or natural right; for natural rights are of course common to all men; and the absurdity of every man having the natural right to impose his will upon another man is manifest. To say that there exists a natural right common to all men involving power over others, or that one man has a natural right to interfere with the actions of others, or of a society formed of others, or a natural right whose exercise by some would deprive other men of their own similar rights is nonsense; since these last would have the same power over the first and the result would be chaos. Such a proposition involves a complete contradiction of itself, and an impossibility. Society and political organizations are artificially created, and all rights under them are artificially acquired. The result of the exercise of some power, or founded upon an agreement of some kind, express or implied, they are in the nature of gifts or functions conferred by society upon the individual. Of this character is the voting franchise. There can be no natural right to the control of society or even to take part in society against its will, both of which as social and legal, not natural rights, are asserted and employed by every voter. The only natural right that a man can have towards society is to escape from it altogether to a place not occupied by other men. These considerations dispose of the sentimental twaddle uttered sometimes by shallow magazine writers and unsophisticated college professors that every man has a natural right to what they call “political self expression.” Self expression by political voting always involves in some way the exercise of power over others; and no one can have a natural right to such power.