Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/514

506 FEI>KP.Ali EEPOÛTJiû. �from adopting a lawf ul employaient, or from follcwing a law- ful employment previously adopted, does deprive them of liberty, as weU as property, witkout due process of law, Their right of choice is a portion of their liberty; their occupation is their prop- erty. Such a law also deprives those citizens of the equal pro- tection of the latvs, contrary ta the last clause of the section. " Id. 122. �And Mr. Justice Swayne supports this view in the follow- ing eloquent and emphatic language : "Life is the gift of God, and the right to preserve it is the most sacred of the rights of man. Liberty is freedom from all restraints but such as are justly imposed by law. Beyond that line lies the domain of usurpation and tyranny. Property is everything which has an exchangeable value, and the right of property includes the power to dispose of it according to the will of the owner. Labor is property, and, as such, merits protection. The right to make it availàble is next in importance to the rights of life and liberty. It lies, to a large extent, at the foundation of most other forms of property." Id. 127. �Some of these extracts are from the dissenting opinions, but not upon points where there is any disagreement. There is no difference of opinion as to the significance of the terms "privileges and immunities." Indeed, it seems quite im- possible that any definition of these terms could be adopted, or even seriously proposed, so narrow as to exclude the right to labor for subsistence. As to by far the greater portion of the Chinese, as well as other foreigners who land upon our shores, their labor is the only exchangeable commodity they possess. To deprive them of the right to labor is to consign them to starvation. The right to labor is, of all others, after the right to live, the fundamental, inalienable right of man, ■wherever he may be permitted to be, of which he eannot be deprived, either under the guise of law or otherwise, except by usurpation and force. Man ate and died. Wlien God drove him "forth from the Garden of Bden to till the ground, from whenee he was taken," and said to him, "in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground," He invested him with an inalienable right to labor ��� �