7605. RIGHTS, Personal.—
It were contrary
to feeling, and indeed, ridiculous to suppose that a man had less right in himself
than one of his neighbors, or indeed, than all
of them put together. This would be slavery,
and not that liberty which the bill of rights
has made inviolable, and for the preservation
of which our government has been charged.
Nothing could so completely divest us of that
liberty as the establishment of the opinion,
that the State has a perpetual right to the
services of all its members. This, to men of
certain ways of thinking, would be to annihilate
the blessing of existence, and to contradict
the Giver of life, who gave it for happiness
and not for wretchedness.—
To James Monroe. Washington ed. i, 319.
Ford ed., iii, 58.
(M.
1782)
