ame passions as minorities, and
they have no qualities whatever that should be expected to prevent them
from practising the same tyranny as minorities, if they think it will
be for their interest to do so.

There is no particle of truth in the notion that the majority have a
_right_ to rule, or to exercise arbitrary power over, the minority,
simply because the former are more numerous than the latter. Two men
have no more natural right to rule one, than one has to rule two. Any
single man, or any body of men, many or few, have a natural right to
maintain justice for themselves, and for any others who may need their
assistance, against the injustice of any and all other men, without
regard to their numbers; and majorities have no right to do any more
than this. The relative numbers of the opposing parties have nothing to
do with the question of right. And no more tyrannical principle was ever
avowed, than that the will of the majority ought to have the force of
law, without regard to its justice; or, what is the same thing, that the
will of the majority ought always to be presumed to be in accordance
with justice. Such a doctrine is only another form of the doctrine that
might makes right.

When _two_ men meet _one_ upon the highway, or in the wilderness, have
they a right to dispose of his life, liberty, or property at their
pleasure, simply because they are the more numerous party? Or is he
bound to submit to lose his life, liberty, or property, if they demand
it, merely because he is the less numerous party? Or, because they are
more numerous than he, is he bound to presume that they are governed
only by superior wisdom, and the principles of justice, and by no
selfish passion that can lead them to do him a wrong? Yet this is the
principle, which it is claimed should govern men in all their civil
relations to each other. Mankind fall in company with each other on the
highway or in the wilderness of life, and it is claimed that the more
numerous party, simply by virtue of their superior numbers, have the
right arbitrarily to dispose of the life, liberty, and property of the
minority; and that the minority are bound, by reason of their inferior
numbers, to practise abject submission, and consent to hold their
natural rights,--any, all, or none, as the case may be,--at the mere
will and pleasure of the majority; as if all a man's natural rights
expired, or were suspended by the operation of a paramount law, the
moment