University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
  
expand section 
  
expand section 
  

collapse section1. 
expand section1.1. 
expand section1.2. 
expand section1.3. 
expand section2. 
expand section3. 
expand section4. 
expand section5. 
expand section6. 
expand section7. 
expand section8. 
expand section9. 
expand section10. 
expand section11. 
expand section12. 
expand section13. 
expand section14. 
expand section15. 
expand section16. 
expand section17. 
expand section18. 
expand section19. 
expand section20. 
expand section21. 
expand section22. 
expand section23. 
expand section24. 
expand section25. 
expand section26. 
expand section27. 
expand section28. 
expand section29. 
expand section30. 
expand section31. 

In countries where liberty is most esteemed, there are laws by which a single person is deprived of it, in order to preserve it for the whole community. Such are in England what they call Bills of Attainder. [54]

These are in relation to those Athenian laws by which a private person was condemned, [55] provided they were made by the unanimous suffrage of six thousand citizens. They are in relation also to those laws which were made at Rome against private citizens, and were called privilege. [56] These were never passed except in the great meetings of the people. But in what manner soever they were enacted, Cicero was for having them abolished, because the force of a law consists in its being made for the whole community. [57] I must own, notwithstanding, that the practice of the freest nation that ever existed induces me to think that there are cases in which a veil should be drawn for a while over liberty, as it was customary to cover the statues of the gods.