plied to the limits affixed to its freedom of action. But this objection, when once understood, is of little practical importance. It is sufficient to establish that there are certain definite limits which circumscribe the free action of every governing authority, and that these limitations admit of being formulated into more or less precisely articulated propositions. Such propositions, capable as they are of being handled, interpreted, and enforced, in courts of justice, have all the essential qualities that belong to the general rules framed by the governing authority itself, for the guidance of the conduct of all persons submitted to its dominion.
The topics of these general rules or laws will be those matters which have already been described as essentially inviting the direction of the corporate strength of the community. Such matters are the relations of family life, so far as outward actions and public decorum are involved, the security of property, the protection of individual liberty, the enforcement of contracts, and the prevention of those violent and exceptional excesses denominated crimes.
At a very early period in the history of the community, the interest that each citizen has in the wise and effectual regulation of such matters as these becomes conspicuous to all, and more especially to those usually, or, on the average, more advanced and intelligent members of the community who find themselves charged, through, it may be, a series of political vicissitudes, with the duties of government. It is probable that these several and various objects will attach to themselves, at different epochs, a very unequal and disproportionate share of attention.
The security of property may alternate with security of the person as an object of governmental care; and the classification of crimes and civil injuries, or even of crimes and religious offenses or sins, may be, in the highest degree, irregular and unsystematic. The vices, the selfishness, the ignorance of individual rulers, will, from time to time, bring into relief some classes of laws to the disparagement or neglect of others. At one epoch a state will suffer from having too few laws, at another from having too many. Particular classes of persons may lose or gain at one period of legislation, and other classes may lose or gain at another. These eras and disasters are of none the lighter consequence that they have been universal. It is in spite of them, and not by means of them, that states have finally endured and fought their way to a climax of intelligent legislation and conscious political life. In the case of such states, the heart of the people, as estimated from generation to generation, has been sound, and the heads of their rulers wise. The laws have gradually been adapted to promote individual liberty, and not to impair it; and the province of government has been so mapped out as to make the government an institution conducive to the good of the people, and not a mere organ for the sacrifice of a nation to a class.
