The right of jurisdiction belongs only to those societies which have
united for the purpose of maintaining the natural rights of each
individual.
The ablest writers have maintained that society has not the right of life
and death, and whoever arrogates that power commits a "divine _lese
majeste_." "The object, the interest, and the function of all government
are, then, to maintain the harmony of society established upon the moral
relations of justice, and upon the physical order that no human power can
change, and to protect all those who compose that society." Louis XI.,
that Tiberius of France, caused to be put to death more than four
thousand persons, and nearly all without process of law.
We see passionate men defending palpable errors with fanaticism and
metaphysical temerity, as though they were divine dogmas. Thus Slavery
would legalize frightful tyranny, and declare permanent proscriptions,
with the same ease that it consigned thousands to starvation. "If
liberty," says the author of the "Essai sur le Despotisme," "is the first
of resorts for man, Slavery must alter all the sentiments, blunt all the
sensations, and denaturalize them; stifle all talent, blend all shades,
corrupt all the orders of state, and scatter discord, the germ of anarchy
and revolutions. Man is only wicked when a superstitious institution or a
tyrannical government gives the example of ferocity, and supplies him with
fear for motive and cupidity for passion. But it is necessary to
distinguish with men the character acquired from natural inclination: we
are, of all beings, the most susceptible of modifications, and above all,
of extreme passions. An enslaved people are always vile: they can be
wicked and cruel, because they are irritable, gloomy, and ignorant; and
when, although instruction will not be the only rampart of liberty against
tyranny, it will always be the first safeguard of man against man; but the
slave is a mutilated man."
Every writer will admit this whose pen is not enslaved by fear, or
rendered venal by interest.