dient for their citizens to have, their citizens would have these rights merely as citizens. Such a doctrine would make little difference to the rest of the world. Any rights which we think it merely expedient that our citizens should have at home are of course of little effect abroad. But we do not base our belief in these rights of the individual against the government upon any grounds of national expediency. We assert that every citizen of the United States has certain rights against all other persons and against all governments, because these rights arise out of the necessities of human nature and because it is essential to human society that every individual should have these rights. We say that these are "fundamental rights" and are not only universal but are "unalienable"-that is, that persons cannot convey them to governments and thereby give governments absolute power over them. This makes our philosophy international, as well as national. Our people and all who dwell in our midst or under our jurisdiction, have fundamental rights against our governments not merely as citizens of the United States, or as under its protection or jurisdiction, but as human beings living in the society of other human beings. These fundamental rights, according to our philosophy, must therefore arise under a law growing out of the necessities of human nature, which is supreme over the United States and over all individuals, peoples, and nations, and which arises from the act of a legislator external to the United States.

What then, are these fundamental rights which thus arise under a law made by the legislative act of a power external to and supreme over the United States, and what is this external and supreme law under which we consider these rights to exist?

The Declaration of Independence contains the only af

firmative statement concerning these fundamental rights and this external and supreme law. In the preamble, it is said: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." Thus the Declaration divides all rights of individuals into two classes. In the first class are certain unalienable rights with which each man is endowed by his Creator, and among which are the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; in the second class are all other rights. This first class the Supreme Court of the United States calls "fundamental rights"; the second class it calls "artificial or remedial rights," since the rights of the second class must be consistent with and in aid of those of the first class. The fundamental rights are "recognized, but not created, by the Constitution;" that is to say, by the people of the United States, through the Constitution. (Logan v. United States, 144 U. S., 263, 293.)

The artificial or remedial rights are created by the people or the government of the United States, or by the peoples or the governments of the States. The Supreme Court says of these rights that they are "peculiar to our own system of jurisprudence:" thus distinguishing them from fundamental rights, which are of course, in our view, common to every system of jurisprudence, including the international system. (Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U. S., 244, 282.)

The definition of the fundamental rights of the individual as including his rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," given in the Declaration, is too indefinite for practical use. When, however, we go

back to the literature of the Revolutionary period and use it as a contemporary exposition of the meaning of these words, the definition becomes clear and practical. The fundamental or common rights are those corresponding to the common attributes which all men have as a necessary part of their human nature and as essential to the existence of human society. These attributes are life, the power to move and the power to use lands, things, and forces in the pursuit of happiness. Inasmuch as these common attributes with which all are equally endowed by and at their creation give rise to common necessities, it follows, as we believe, that there must be a supreme and fundamental law of human society recognizing these common attributes and these common necessities and conferring rights upon each individual to satisfy his necessities. The fundamental rights of the individual may thus be stated to be the right to so live, to so move, and to use such part of the land, things, and physical forces of the universe for his support and happiness, as is consistent with the common and equal right of every other individual to such life, to such motion, and to the use of lands, things, and forces for the same purpose. Though these fundamental rights cannot be alienated by any individual to any person or government, the individual may of course forfeit them to society for anti-human and anti-social acts done by him, and it is the function of governments, subject to the ultimate superintendence of the people of each nation, to adjudicate the total or partial forfeiture of these rights by due process of law and to enforce forfeitures so adjudicated. The right of an individual to use exclusively lands, things, or forces, which we call property, is evidently to some extent a fundamental right and to some extent an artificial right. Thus the Declaration does not regard property as a

fundamental right. On account, however, of the difficulty of determining the extent of property which the individual may own as a matter of fundamental right, we protect all the property which an individual owns, equally with his life and liberty, so as to prevent it from being taken from him "without due process of law," thus requiring proper legislative action, proper judicial determination and proper executive action as a precedent to the forfeiture.

The nations which recognize the fundamental rights of the individual have various expedients for safeguarding them. These rights may evidently be infringed by individuals or by governments. The courts in every civilized country are the especial guardians of fundamental rights in so far as the customary law is concerned. Courts everywhere refuse to apply customs as rules of law when the customs are contrary to fundamental rights. But when the legislature has enacted a law, the courts of most nations are powerless to consider whether it infringes the fundamental rights of the individual. Thus, in most nations, the individual has no rights against the government, or at least against the legislative branch. Experience has shown, however, that each individual has quite as much to fear from the action of governments-even from the popular legislatures-in infringing his fundamental rights as from other individuals. A government, or the legislative part of it, is, after all, only a group of individuals, and it may, like any other group of individuals, violate the fundamental rights of individuals. Even if the government is directly responsible to the will of the majority of the electors, the majority may compel the government to violate the fundamental rights of the individual unless some way is found for nullifying such governmental acts even though commanded by the majority.

The British system of responsible government recognizes the fundamental rights of the individual, but gives no protection to the individual against infringement of his rights by the government except by concentrating responsibility in a small committee called the Cabinet, and making the tenure of office of the Cabinet depend upon its having a majority in the popular House. The theory is that if the Cabinet attempts to induce any branch of the government to infringe the fundamental rights of the individual, or sanction such an infringement, it will lose its majority and go out of power, to be supplanted by a Cabinet which will see that these rights are protected.

The people of the United States have adopted a different method of protecting these fundamental rights. In the Constitution of the United States, and in the State Constitutions, are inserted prohibitions upon certain forms of governmental action found by experience to be likely to occur if not prohibited, and which endanger or destroy the fundamental rights of the individual. These prohibitions are the most fundamental parts of the Constitution, and no governmental powers can be exercised contrary to them. That is to say, they are supreme over all the rest of the Constitution and over all governmental action which the particular Constitution affects. The Supreme Court of the United States has said to repeat what has been above quoted with its immediate context-that there are "certain fundamental rights, recognized and declared, but not granted or created by the Constitution, and thereby guaranteed against violation or infringement by the United States, or by the States, as the case may be." The following is a collation of the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting certain kinds of governmental action by the Government of the United States