In illustration of the principles stated in preceding paragraphs, I
might here cite a few decisions from our higher courts showing the
outrageous illegal and unconstitutional nature of all forcible or
compulsory vaccination.
Judge Bartlett, of the New York Supreme Court, in the case of Walters
in 1894, decided that:
“To vaccinate a person against his will, without legal
authority so to do, would be an assault.”
Judge Gaynor, of the same Court, in the case of Smith against Health
Commissioner Emery of Brooklyn in 1894, gave the following important
decision which was afterwards fully sustained by the New York Court of
Appeals:
“If the Commissioner [of Health] had the power to imprison an
individual for refusing to submit to vaccination, I see no
reason why he should not also imprison one for refusing to
swallow a dose. But the Legislature has conferred no such power
upon him, if, indeed, it has the power to do the like.... If
the Legislature desired to make vaccination compulsory it would
have so enacted. Whether it be within its power to do so, and
if so, by what means it may enforce such an enactment, are not
for discussion here.”
Judge Woodward, of the New York Appellate Court, in the Viemeister case
in 1903, declared that:
“It may be conceded that the Legislature has no constitutional
right to compel any person to submit to vaccination.”
The Supreme Court of the State of Massachusetts, in the case of
Jacobson in 1904, said:
“If a person should deem it important that vaccination should
not be performed in his case and the authorities should
think otherwise, _it is not in their power to vaccinate him
by force_, and the worst that could happen to him under the
statute would be the payment of the penalty of five dollars.”
Judge Fitts, of the Supreme Court in Columbia County, New York, in the
case of Bollinger in February, 1909, charged the jury as follows:
“I charge you, gentlemen of the jury, that the courts of this
State in construing the authority and power so conferred upon
local health officers who are the executive members of the
board or the local boards, have held that there is no warrant
or authority in law for the compulsory vaccination of any
individual.”
At the second trial of this case in February, 1910, Judge LeBœuf
charged the jury in these words:
“Now, I have charged you that this assault which is claimed to
have existed here, due to the forcible vaccination, if it was
a forcible vaccination, that is, if it was against this man’s
will, is one which you must consider. And the reason of that is
this: This man, in the eyes of the law, just as you and I and
all of us in this court-room, has the right to be let alone.
We all have the right to the freedom of our persons and that
freedom of our persons may not be unlawfully invaded. That is a
great right. It is one of the most important rights we have.”
THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES ON THE PREËMINENT RIGHTS OF THE
INDIVIDUAL
In conclusion on this most vital point, let me call your special
attention, Mr. President, to a most significant and important decision
of the U. S. Supreme Court in the vaccination case of Jacobson _v._
Massachusetts, rendered in 1905, on appeal from the Supreme Court of
Massachusetts. In this long and interesting decision, one of its most
clear and conclusive paragraphs emphatically declares the preëminent
rights of the individual in certain spheres, as follows:
“There is, of course, a sphere within which the individual may
assert the supremacy of his own will and rightfully dispute
the authority of any human government, especially of any free
government existing under a written constitution, to interfere
with the exercise of that will.”
Now, what is this “sphere” within which this highest court
in our land tells us so clearly and emphatically that “_the individual
may assert the supremacy of his own will and rightfully dispute the
authority of any human government, especially of any free government,
existing under a written constitution, to interfere with the exercise
of that will_”?
The context both before and after this paragraph shows clearly that
this “sphere” of individual right and freedom exists wherever any
unalienable or inherent natural right secured by our constitution is
invaded or violated, or where any act or practice forced upon the
individual is potentially or actually dangerous to the health or life
of that individual, such as I have shown every act of vaccination to
be, in its very nature being an act of septicemic infection or blood
poisoning pure and simple, which sometimes causes wide-spread epidemics
and frequently causes serious injuries and many deaths, even more
deaths than smallpox itself, as has been demonstrated beyond question.
Surely, therefore, there is no individual or personal right more
inherent and natural and more sacred and obvious or more surely
guaranteed in Declaration and Constitution than the right to medical
freedom of the body, the right to health and life and the right of
the individual to select and decide freely for himself the medical
treatment of his own body, and the right to guard it against any
medical treatment or operation which in his own judgment and conscience
may be unnecessary or undesirable or may involve great risk or
suffering to himself or may seriously endanger his health or life.
This right is, I think, so obvious, so fundamental and necessary and
so unquestionable under the letter and spirit of our basic laws and
constitution, and by the decisions of our courts as well as by all
common sense, logic and ethics, that I do not think another word of
argument is necessary to establish this right in the conscientious
conviction of every rational mind.