...public.'' The core of natural liberty was constituted by the "absolute rights of man" which represented "one of the gifts of God to man at his creation, when he endued him with the faculty of free will.'' In England such divine benefactions had been preserved in the weighty hody of legal provisions that...

...James Mackintosh, 3 vols. (London, 1 846), I, 339-87. " 1 Comm 126-7. " 1 Comm 127. itself, represented "one of the gifts of God to man at his creation, when he endued him with the faculty of free will." When man entered into society, he gave up the "power of acting as one thinks fit" subject solely to...

..."consists in a power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, unless by the law of nature: being a right inherent in us by birth, and...creation, when he endued him with the faculty of free will."115 Eighteenth-century participants, whether governors or governed, made these assumptions facts...

...yielding of absolute rights, civil government would be impossible. 'But every man,' says Blackstone. 'when he enters into society, gives up a part of his natural liberty.' 'Property and law.' as Bentham says, 'are born and must die together.' The right to dispose of property...