ted of at length,
for it is the one most akin to my purpose of showing the benefits of
freedom in a state.

I may pass over the fundamental principles of other forms of government,
for we may gather from what has been said whence their right arises
without going into its origin. The possessor of sovereign power, whether
he be one, or many, or the whole body politic, has the sovereign right
of imposing any commands he pleases; and he who has either voluntarily,
or under compulsion, transferred the right to defend him to another,
has, in so doing, renounced his natural right and is therefore bound to
obey, in all things, the commands of the sovereign power; and will be
bound so to do so long as the king, or nobles, or the people preserve
the sovereign power which formed the basis of the original transfer. I
need add no more.

The bases and rights of dominion being thus displayed, we shall readily
be able to define private civil right, wrong, justice, and injustice,
with their relations to the state; and also to determine what
constitutes an ally, or an enemy, or the crime of treason.

By private civil right we can only mean the liberty every man possesses
to preserve his existence, a liberty limited by the edicts of the
sovereign power, and preserved only by its authority. For when a man has
transferred to another his right of living as he likes, which was only
limited by his power, that is, has transferred his liberty and power of
self-defense, he is bound to live as that other dictates, and to trust
to him entirely for his defense. Wrong takes place when a citizen, or
subject, is forced by another to undergo some loss or pain in
contradiction to the authority of the law, or the edict of the sovereign
power.

Wrong is conceivable only in an organized community; nor can it ever
accrue to subjects from any act of the sovereign, who has the right to
do what he likes. It can only arise, therefore, between private persons,
who are bound by law and right not to injure one another. Justice
consists in the habitual rendering to every man his lawful due;
injustice consists in depriving a man, under the pretense of legality,
of what the laws, rightly interpreted, would allow him. These last are
also called equity and inequity, because those who administer the laws
are bound to show no respect of persons, but to account all men equal,
and to defend every man's right equally, neither envying the rich nor
despising the poor.