RIGHTS” AND “RIGHT

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 17, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 37.

“RIGHTS” AND “RIGHT.”

The Declaration of Independence declares most truly that “all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” These “rights” are natural; they are given of God to each in common with all. No man or set of men have the right to deprive their fellow man of these rights, however humble and unpretending or few he may be. Number or wealth or education has nothing to do with the matter. Among these rights are life. Each man has the right to life, and he can not be deprived of it only as he forfeits that right by depriving his fellow man of the same right. Each man has liberty to go or come, to do or not to do, to believe or not to believe, to worship or not to worship, so long as he does not infringe upon the equal rights of his fellows.

But the exercise of these rights is subject to himself. If a person wishes to bind his conscience by a creed and his actions by the decrees of a pope or council, he has the right to do this, if his actions do not contravene the equal rights of his fellows. He may make himself a veritable slave by thus yielding his personal freedom; it is his right thus to do, but no one else has the right to compel otherwise. The pursuit of happiness is his right, but he may pursue misery if he so elect. His fellows may not compel happiness, because they can not. To endeavor so to do would bring the misery of slavery.

Freedom under the Stars and Stripes permits the male citizen of this country over twenty-one years of age to exercise his franchise at the polls under the same conditions as all other citizens. This is one of his rights, which he may exercise or not as he elects; but it would not be right for his fellow citizens to seek to compel him to vote. Such an attempt would deprive him of his liberty. The exercise, or non-exercise, of such rights belongs to him. In fact, he might not conscientiously be able to exercise such a right; it might not be right for him to do this; he would violate his conscience if he did. For instance, he might believe in a high tariff “for protection” and “free silver.” He is conscientiously opposed to a “gold standard,” a waiting bimetalism, and a low tariff, or a tariff for “revenue.” It would not be right for him to vote otherwise than he believes. Where would he vote? We have two Democratic parties, the Republican party, the National, the Prohibition, the Socialist parties. But not one of these holds to what seems to our conscientious citizen the two cardinal principles of the country’s needs. To him, therefore, it would not be right to exercise the right of franchise, and it would not be right to compel him so to do.

It is so religiously. One may observe the Sabbath or not as he will. It is a matter which lies between him and God. It may be right for him to do this, and wrong not to do it; but it is his right, so far as his fellow men are concerned, to do wrong in this respect if he choose. And no earthly government can compel him to do right. They may compel him to seem to do right, but the result is that they have made a slave and a hypocrite. The matter lies solely between the individual man and God. He may be persuaded; he can not be compelled.

An understanding of these principles would greatly help in these days of recrudescence of political and religious tyranny.