So Great Moreover Is The Regard Of

And These Great Natural Rights May Be Reduced To Three Principal Or Primary Articles: The Right Of Personal Security; The Right Of Personal Liberty; And The Right Of Private Property; Because As There Is No Other Known Method Of Compulsion, Or Of Abridging Man's Natural Free Will, But By An Infringement Or Diminution Of One Or Other Of These Important Rights, The Preservation Of These, Inviolate, May Justly Be Said To Include The Preservation Of Our Civil Immunities In Their Largest And Most Extensive Sense.

This Law Of Nature, Being Co-eval With Mankind And Dictated By God Himself, Is Of Course Superior In Obligation To Any Other. It Is Binding Over All The Globe, In All Countries, And At All Times: No Human Laws Are Of Any Validity, If Contrary To This; And Such Of Them As Are Valid Derive All Their Force, And All Their Authority, Mediately Or Immediately, From This Original.

In All Tyrannical Governments The Supreme Magistracy, Or The Right Both Of Making And Of Enforcing The Laws, Is Vested In One And The Same Man, Or One And The Same Body Of Men; And Wherever These Two Powers Are United Together, There Can Be No Public Liberty.

The Liberty Of The Press Is Indeed Essential To The Nature Of A Free State: But This Consists In Laying No Previous Restraints Upon Publications, And Not In Freedom From Censure For Criminal Matter When Published. Every Freeman Has An Undoubted Right To Lay What Sentiments He Pleases Before The Public: To Forbid This, Is To Destroy The Freedom Of The Press: But If He Publishes What Is Improper, Mischievous, Or Illegal, He Must Take The Consequence Of His Own Temerity.

The Most Universal And Effectual Way Of Discovering The True Meaning Of Law, When The Words Are Dubious, Is By Considering The Reason And Spirit Of It; Or The Cause Which Moved The Legislator To Enact It. For When This Reason Ceased, The Law Itself Ought Likewise To Cease With It.