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"an appeal lies from the colonies to the king and council." Mr. Chalmers then adds: "The commentator seems to have borrowed this form of words from Sir Matthew Hale's History of the Common Law; but great names and high authority cannot justify such inaccuracy of language and of law. The appeal is to the king in his council." The reader will see by reference to the text above that Blackstone did not commit the inaccuracy he is charged with. Every one of the editions collated for this text, from the first to the ninth, reads "to the king in council." The mistake crept into the work long after his death. Chalmers cites the twelfth edition for it. The thirteenth has the same reading, at least if we may judge from the Dublin reprint, dated 1796, while the second American edition of 1799 reads correctly "to the king in council here in England." But singularly enough, the error which Chalmers criticises is found in every later American edition that I have examined. (In Tucker's edition; in the New York editions of 1822, 1827; in Wendell's edition, N. Y. 1852; Judge Sharswood's Phila. 1866; and in the three of Judge Cooley, Chicago, 1870, 1872, 1883.) It is now a matter of merely historical importance, but justice to Blackstone demands that he should not be made responsible for "such inaccuracy" as he never committed.

COMMENTARIES

ON THE

LAWS OF ENGLAND

BOOK THE FIRST.

OF THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS.

CHAPTER THE FIRST.

OF THE ABSOLUTE RIGHTS OF INDIVIDUALS.

The objects of the laws of England are so very numerous and extensive, that, in order to consider them with any tolerable ease and perspicuity, it will be necessary to distribute them methodically, under proper and distinct heads; avoiding as much as possible divisions too large and comprehensive on the one hand, and too trifling and minute on the other; both of which are equally productive of confusion.

[122] Now, as municipal law is a rule of civil conduct, commanding what is right, and prohibiting what is wrong; or as Cicero,a and after him our Bracton, have expressed it, sanctio justa, jubens honesta et prohibens contraria; it follows, that the primary and principal objects of the law are RIGHTS and WRONGS. [ See note 1, page 316.] In the prosecution therefore of these coma 11 Philipp. 12. b l. 1. c. 3.

mentaries, I shall follow this very simple and obvious division; and shall in the first place consider the rights that are commanded, and secondly the wrongs that are forbidden by the laws of England.

Rights are however liable to another subdivision: being either, first those which concern and are annexed to the persons of men, and are then called jura personarum or the rights of persons; or they are, secondly, such as a man may acquire over external objects, or things unconnected with his person, which are stiled jura rerum or the rights of things. [See notes 2 and 3, pages 330, 337.] Wrongs also are divisible into, first, private wrongs, which, being an infringement merely of particular rights, concern individuals only, and are called civil injuries; and secondly, public wrongs, which, being a breach of general and public rights, affect the whole community, and are called crimes and misdemeanors.

The objects of the laws of England falling into this fourfold division, the present commentaries will therefore consist of the four following parts: 1. The rights of persons; with the means whereby such rights may be either acquired or lost. 2. The rights of things; with the means also of acquiring and losing them. 3. Private wrongs, or civil injuries; with the means of redressing them by law. 4. Public wrongs; or crimes and misdemeanors; with the means of prevention and punishment.

We are now, first, to consider the rights of persons; with the means of acquiring and losing them.

[123] Now the rights of persons that are commanded to be observed by the municipal law are of two sorts: first, such as are due from every citizen, which are usually called civil duties; and secondly, such as belong to him, which is the more popular acceptation of rights or jura. Both may indeed be comprized in this latter division; for, as all social duties are of a relative

nature, at the same time that they are due from one man, or set of men, they must also be due to another. But I apprehend it will be more clear and easy to consider many of them as duties required from, rather than as rights belonging to particular persons. Thus, for instance, allegiance is usually, and therefore most easily, considered as the duty of the people, and protection as the duty of the magistrate; and yet they are, reciprocally, the rights as well as duties of each other. Allegiance is the right of the magistrate, and protection the right of the people.

* Persons also are divided by the law into either natural persons, or artificial. Natural persons are such as the God of nature formed us; artificial are such as are created and devised by human laws for the purposes of society and goverment, which are called corporations or bodies politic.*

The rights of persons considered in their natural capacities are also of two sorts, absolute and relative. Absolute, which are such as appertain and belong to particular men, merely as individuals or single persons: relative, which are incident to them as members of society, and standing in various relations to each other. The first, that is, absolute rights, will be the subject of the present chapter.

By the absolute rights of individuals we mean those which are so in their primary and strictest sense; such as would belong to their persons merely in a state of nature, and which every man is entitled to enjoy, whether out of society or in it. But with regard to the absolute duties, which man is bound [124] to perform considered as a mere individual, it is not to be expected that any human municipal law should at all explain or enforce them. For the end and intent of such laws being only to regulate the behaviour of mankind, as they are members of society, and stand in various rela**Quoted, 22 Wend. 90. Cited, 11 Ga. 347.

1 BLACKST.-25.

tions to each other, they have consequently no business or concern with any but9 social or relative duties. Let a man therefore be ever so abandoned in his principles, or vitious in his practice, provided he keeps his wickedness to himself, and does not offend against the rules of public decency, he is out of the reach of human laws. But if he makes his vices public, though they be such as seem principally to affect himself (as drunkenness, or the like), they then become, by the bad example they set, of pernicious effects to society; and therefore it is then the business of human laws to correct them.† Here the circumstance of publication is what alters the nature of the case. Public sobriety is a relative duty, and therefore enjoined by our laws; private sobriety is an absolute duty, which, whether it be performed or not, human tribunals can never know; and therefore they can never enforce it by any civil sanction. But with respect to rights, the case is different. Human laws define and enforce as well those rights which belong to a man considered as an individual, as those which belong to him considered as related to others.

For the principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights, which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature; but which could not be preserved in peace without that mutual assistance and intercourse, which is gained by the institution of friendly and social communities. Hence it follows, that the first and primary end of human laws is to maintain and regulate these absolute rights of individuals. Such rights as are social and relative result from, and are posterior to, the formation of states and societies: so that to maintain and regulate these is clearly a subsequent consider9 So in first eight editions; the ninth reads, "no concern with any other but."

+-+ Quoted, 1 Swan, 44.

‡ Cited, 16 Wall. 126.

- Quoted, 4 Smedes & M. 770.

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