t must be, by the choosing of a few to speak and act _in
behalf of the many_: and, as there will hardly ever be _perfect
unanimity_ amongst men assembled for any purpose whatever, where fact
and argument are to decide the question, the decision is left to the
_majority_, the compact being that the decision of the majority shall be
that of the whole. _Minors_ are excluded from this right, because the
law considers them as infants, because it makes the parent answerable
for civil damages committed by them, and because of their legal
incapacity to make any compact. _Women_ are excluded because husbands
are answerable in law for their wives, as to their civil damages, and
because the very nature of their sex makes the exercise of this right
incompatible with the harmony and happiness of society. Men stained with
_indelible crimes_ are excluded, because they have forfeited their right
by violating the laws, to which their assent has been given. _Insane
persons_ are excluded, because they are dead in the eye of the law,
because the law demands no duty at their hands, because they cannot
violate the law, because the law cannot affect them; and, therefore,
they ought to have no hand in making it.

338. But, with these exceptions, where is the ground whereon to maintain
that _any man_ ought to be deprived of this right, which he derives
directly from the law of Nature, and which springs, as I said before,
out of the same source with civil society itself? Am I told, that
_property_ ought to confer this right? Property sprang from _labour_,
and not labour from property; so that if there were to be a distinction
here, it ought to give the preference to labour. All men are equal by
nature; nobody denies that they all ought to be _equal in the eye of the
law_; but, how are they to be thus equal, if the law begin by suffering
_some_ to enjoy this right and refusing the enjoyment to _others_? It is
the duty of every man to defend his country against an enemy, a duty
imposed by the law of Nature as well as by that of civil society, and
without the recognition of this duty, there could exist no independent
nation and no civil society. Yet, how are you to maintain that this is
the duty of _every man_, if you deny to _some_ men the enjoyment of a
share in making the laws? Upon what principle are you to contend for
_equality_ here, while you deny its existence as to the right of sharing
in the making of the laws? The poor man has a body and