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serve that in the very outset, their enlightened founders publicly recognised the perfect freedom of conscience. There was indeed sometimes an inconsistency, perhaps not adverted to in the occlusion of public offices to all but Christians, which was the case in Pennsylvania, but it was then of little practical importance. In the constitution adopted by that state in 1776, the same inconsistency, though expressed in language somewhat different, was retained, but in her present constitution nothing abridges, nothing qualifies, nothing defeats, the full effect of the original declaration. Both the elector and the elected are entitled, whatever their religious tenets may be, to the fullest enjoyment of political rights, provided in the latter description, the party publicly declares his belief in the being of a God, and a future state of rewards and punishments. This qualification is not expressly required of an elector, and perhaps was introduced in respect to those elected, chiefly for the purpose of more particularly explaining the sense of a preceding section. It is indeed to such a degree doubtful whether any can be found so weak and depraved as to disbelieve these cardinal points of all religions, that it can scarcely be supposed to have been introduced for any other purpose. (51)

Just and liberal principles on this subject, throw a lustre round the constitution in which they are found, and while they dignify the nation, promote its internal peace and harmony. No predominant religion over

(51) There are now but two states in the union whose constitutions contain exclusive provisions in regard to religious opinions. In Maryland, no one who does not believe in the Christian religion can be admitted to an office of trust or profit. In North Carolina, the same exclusion is extended to all who deny the truth of the protestant religion. But in every other respect than the capacity to hold such offices all stand on the same footing in both states.

powers another, the votaries of which are few and humble; no lordly hierarchy excites odium or terror; legal persecution is unknown, and freedom of discussion, while it tends to promote the knowledge, contributes to increase the fervour of piety.

The freedom of speech and of the press forms part of the same article, and in part relates to the same subject; it embraces all matters of religious, moral, political, or physical discussion. Tacitus, in gloomy meditation on the imperial despotism of Rome, exclaims, "How rare "are those happy times when men may think what they "please and say what they think." Under the denial of such rights life is indeed of little value. The foundation of a free government begins to be undermined when freedom of speech on political subjects is restrained; it is destroyed when freedom of speech is wholly denied. The press is a vehicle of the freedom of speech. The art of printing illuminates the world, by a rapid dissemination of what would otherwise be slowly communicated and partially understood. This may easily be conceived, if we were to figure to ourselves the total suppression of printing for even a short time in this country. Our newspapers are now more numerous than such publications are in an equal amount of population in any other part of the world. Wherever a new settlement is formed, and every year presents many such, a printing press is established as soon as a sufficient number of inhabitants is collected. Information is the moral food, for which the active American intellect ever hungers.

But the liberty of speech and of the press may be abused, and so may every human institution. It is not to be supposed that it may be abused with impunity. Remedies will always be found while the protection of individual rights and the reasonable safeguards of so

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ciety itself form parts of the principles of our government. A previous superintendency of the press, an arbitrary power to direct or prohibit its publications are withheld, but the punishment of dangerous or offensive publications, which on a fair and impartial trial are found to have a pernicious tendency, is necessary for the peace and order of government and religion, which are the solid foundations of civil liberty.

The right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition government for a redress of grievances concludes the article.

Of this right in the abstract there cannot be a doubt. To withhold from the injured the privilege of complaint, and to debar the rulers from the benefit of information that may apprize them of their errors, is mutually unjust. It may however be urged, that history shows how these meetings and petitions have been abused, and we may be turned to an English statute, which though ill observed, is said to be still in force. (52) But besides the well known irrelevancy of the argument from the abuse of any thing against its use, we must remember that by requiring the assembly to be peaceable, the usual remedies of the law are retained, if the right is illegally exercised.

The preceding article expressly refers to the powers of congress alone, but some of those which follow are to be more generally construed, and considered as applying to the state legislatures as well as that of the Union. The important principles contained in them are now incorporated by adoption into the instrument itself; they form parts of the declared rights of the people, of which neither the state powers nor those

(52) 1 Bl. 143. 4 Bl. 147. Lord Mansfield on the trial of Lord George Gordon.

of the Union can ever deprive them. A subsequent article declares, that the powers not delegated to congress by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. What we are about to consider are certainly not delegated to congress, nor are they noticed in the prohibitions to states; they are therefore reserved either to the states or to the people. Their high nature, their necessity to the general security and happiness will be distinctly perceived.

The constitutions of some of the states contains bills of rights; others do not. A declaration of rights therefore, properly finds its way into the general constitution, where it equalizes all and binds all. It becomes part of the general compact. Each state is obliged while it remains a member of the Union, to preserve the republican form of government in all its purity and all its strength. The people of each state, by the amended constitution, pledge themselves to each other for the sacred preservation of certain detailed principles, without which the republican form of government would be impure and weak. Let us now view them in succession.

The first is a declaration that a well regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state; a proposition from which few will dissent. Although in actual war the services of regular troops are confessedly more valuable, yet while peace prevails, and in the commencement of a war before a regular force can be raised, the militia form the palladium of the country. They are ready to repel invasion, to suppress insurrection, and preserve the good order and peace of government. That they should be well regulated, is judiciously added. A disorderly militia is disgraceful to itself, and dangerous not to the enemy, but to its own

country. The duty of the state government is to adopt such regulations as will tend to make good soldiers with the least interruptions of the ordinary and useful occupations of civil life. In this all the Union has a strong and visible interest.

The corollary from the first position is, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The prohibition is general. No clause in the constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.

In most of the countries of Europe this right does not seem to be denied, although it is allowed more or less sparingly, according to circumstances. In England, a country which boasts so much of its freedom, the right was secured to protestant subjects only, on the revolution of 1688; and it is cautiously described to be that of bearing arms for their defence "suitable "to their conditions and as allowed by law." (53) An arbitrary code for the preservation of game in that country has long disgraced them. A very small proportion of the people being permitted to kill it, though for their own subsistence, a gun or other instrument used for that purpose by an unqualified person, may be seized and forfeited. Blackstone, in whom we regret that we cannot always trace the expanded principles of rational liberty, observes however, on this subject, that the prevention of popular insurrections and resist

(53) 1 Will. & Mary, c. 2.

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