1963. DEAD, Binding power of the.—
Rights and powers can only belong to per
sons, not to things, not to mere matter, unendowed
with will. The dead are not even
things. The particles of matter which composed
their bodies make part now of the
bodies of other animals, vegetables, or minerals,
of a thousand forms. To what, then, are
attached the rights and powers they held
while in the form of men? A generation May
bind itself as long as its majority continues
in life; when that has disappeared, another
majority is in place, holds all the rights and
powers their predecessors once held, and May
change their laws and institutions to suit
themselves.—
To John Cartwright, Washington ed. vii, 359.
(M.
1824)
See Earth.
