The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. NationNation, Carry Amelia
History
The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation
Nation, Carry Amelia
Nation, Carry Amelia, 1846-1911; Social reformers -- United States -- Biography; Temperance -- United States
In Kansas every liquor selling place is not only a declared nuisance,
but a constitutional outlaw. And in the case from Pennsylvania
where a private individual had abated a nuisance, the court held: "We
consider it also well settled, as is claimed by this defendant, that a common
nuisance may be removed, or, in legal language, abated by any individual.
Any man, says Lord Hale, may justify the removal of a common
nuisance, either by land or by Nyater, because every man is concerned in
it."
It is not only the privilege of the patriotic citizen to abate a dangerous
nuisance but it is commendable. Bishop on Criminal Law, paragraph
1081, says: "This doctrine (of abatement of a public nuisance by an
individual) is an expression of the better instincts of our natures, which
lead men to watch over and shield one another from harm."
"The buildings, premises and paraphernalia of a nuisance are not
legitimate property and have no rights in law. Damages cannot be recovered
for their destruction by an individual. The question of malice does
not enter into the case at all."
I Bishop's Criminal Law 828; I Hilliard on Torts, 605.
"At common law it was always the right of a citizen, without official
authority, to abate a public nuisance, and without waiting to have it
adjudged such by legal tribunal. His right to do so depended upon the
fact of its being a nuisance. If be assumed to act upon his own adjudication
that it was, and such adjudication was afterwards shown to be
wrong, he was liable as a wrong-doer for his error, and appropriate damages
could be recovered against him. This common law right still exists
in full force. Any citizen, acting either as an individual or as a public
official under the orders of local or municipal authorities, whether such
orders be or be not in pursuance of special legislation or charter provisions,
may abate what the common law deemed a public nuisance. In
abating it, property may be destroyed, and the owner deprived of it
without trial, without notice and without compensation. Such destruction
for public safety or health is not a taking of private property for
public uses without compensation, or due process of law, in the sense
of the constitution. It is simply the prevention of its noxious and unlawful
use, and depends upon the principle that every man must so use his
property as not to injure his neighbors, and that the safety of the public
is the paramount law. These principles are legal maxims or axioms
essential to the existence of regulated society. Written constitutions
presuppose them, are subordinate to them, and cannot set them aside."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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