If individuals choose to form an association or government, for the mutual protection of each other's rights, why bargain for the protection of an _indefinite_ portion of them, at the price of giving to the association itself liberty to violate the equally indefinite remainder? By such a contract, a man really surrenders every thing, and secures nothing. Such a contract of government would be a burlesque on the wisdom of asses. Such a contract never was, nor ever will be _voluntarily_ formed. Yet all our governments act on that principle; and so far as they act upon it, they are as essentially usurping and tyrannical as any governments can be. If a man pay his proportion of the aggregate cost of protecting all the rights of each of the members of the association, he thereby acquires a claim upon the association to have his own rights protected without diminution. The ultimate truth on this subject is, that man has an inalienable right to so much personal liberty as he will use without invading the rights of others. This liberty is an inherent right of his nature and his faculties. It is an inherent right of his nature and his faculties to develope themselves freely, and without restraint from other natures and faculties, that have no superior prerogatives to his own. And this right has only this limit, viz., that he do not carry the exercise of his own liberty so far as to restrain or infringe the equally free developement of the natures and faculties of others. The dividing line between the equal liberties of each must never be transgressed by either. This principle is the foundation and essence of law and of civil right. And legitimate government is formed by the voluntary association of individuals, for the mutual protection of each of them in the enjoyment of this natural liberty, against those who may be disposed to invade it. Each individual being secured in the enjoyment of this liberty, must then take the responsibility of his own happiness and well-being. If his necessities require more than his faculties will supply, he must depend upon the voluntary kindness of his fellow-men; unless he be reduced to that extremity where the necessity of self-preservation over-rides all abstract rules of conduct, and makes a law for the occasion--an extremity, that would probably never occur but for some antecedent injustice.] CHAPTER II. WRITTEN CONSTITUTIONS. Taking it for granted that it has now been shown that no rule of civil conduct, that is inconsistent with the natural rights of men, can be rightfully established by government, or consequently be made obligatory as law, either upon the people, or upon judicial tribunals--let us now proceed to test the legality of slavery by those written constitutions of government, which judicial tribunals actually recognize as authoritative.