Sir, I repeat that individual rights are the only human rights.
_Legally speaking_, there are no such things as "_public rights_," as
distinguished from individual rights. _Legally speaking_, there is no
such creature or thing as "_the public_." The term "the public" is an
utterly vague and indefinite one, applied arbitrarily and at random to a
greater or less number of individuals, each and every one of whom have
their own separate, individual rights, _and none others_. And the
protection of these separate, _individual_ rights is the one only
legitimate purpose, for which anything in the nature of a governing, or
coercive, power has a right to exist. And these separate, individual
rights all rest upon, and can be ascertained only by, the one science of
justice.
_Legally speaking_, the term "public _rights_" is as vague and
indefinite as are the terms "public _health_," "public _good_," "public
_welfare_," and the like. It has no legal meaning, except when used to
describe the separate, private, _individual_ rights of a greater or less
number of individuals.
In so far as the separate, private, natural rights of _individuals_ are
secured, in just so far, and no farther, are the "public rights"
secured. In so far as the separate, private, natural rights of
_individuals_ are disregarded or violated, in just so far are "public
rights" disregarded or violated. Therefore all the pretences of
so-called lawmakers, that they are protecting "public rights," by
violating private rights, are sheer and utter contradictions and frauds.
They are just as false and absurd as it would be to say that they are
protecting the public _health_, by arbitrarily poisoning and destroying
the health of single individuals.
The pretence of the lawmakers, that they are promoting the "public
_good_," by violating individual "_rights_," is just as false and absurd
as is the pretence that they are protecting "public _rights_" by
violating "private rights." Sir, the greatest "public _good_," of which
any coercive power, calling itself a government, or by any other name,
is capable, is the protection of each and every individual in the quiet
and peaceful enjoyment and exercise of _all_ his own natural, inherent,
inalienable, _individual_ "rights." This is a "good" that comes home to
each and every individual, of whom "the public" is composed. It is also
a "good," which each and every one of these individuals, composing "the
public," can appreciate. It is a "good," for the loss of which
governments can make no compensation whatever. _It is a universal and
impartial "good,"_ of the highest importance to each and every human
being; and not any such vague, false, and criminal thing as the
lawmakers--when violating private rights--tell us they are trying to
accomplish, under the name of "the public good." It is also the only
"equal and exact justice," which you, or anybody else, are capable of
securing, or have any occasion to secure, to any human being. Let but
this "equal and exact justice" be secured "to all men," and they will
then be abundantly able to take care of themselves, and secure their own
highest "good." Or if any one should ever chance to need anything more
than this, he may safely trust to the voluntary kindness of his fellow
men to supply it.
It is one of those things not easily accounted for, that men who would
scorn to do an injustice to a fellow man, in a private transaction,--who
would scorn to usurp any arbitrary dominion over him, or his
property,--who would be in the highest degree indignant, if charged with
any private injustice,--and who, at a moment's warning, would take their
lives in their hands, to defend their own rights, and redress their own
wrongs,--will, the moment they become members of what they call a
government, assume that they are absolved from all principles and all
obligations that were imperative upon them, as individuals; will assume
that they are invested with a right of arbitrary and irresponsible
dominion over other men, and other men's property. Yet they are doing
this continually. And all the laws they _make_ are based upon the
assumption that they have now become invested with rights that are more
than human, and that those, on whom their laws are to operate, have lost
even their human rights. They seem to be utterly blind to the fact, that
the only reason there can be for their existence as a government, is
that they may protect those very "rights," which they before
scrupulously respected, but which they now unscrupulously trample upon.