Jurisprudence/Section 3

What is required for the perfection of the Civil Code.—Operations preliminary to the Definition of Rights.—Two Things necessary for the Definition of a Right:—First, a Description of its Extent; Secondly, a Description of the Facts which give it a Beginning and an End.

The grand object of the civil code is the definition of rights. Rights are sometimes more, sometimes less extensive. Thus the right of a man to a horse, may solely extend to use him in riding from one stage to another; or it may extend to the power of doing with him as he pleases. In like manner, the rights of a man with respect to a person may extend only to some momentary service, or they may go the length of slavery. Even slavery itself does not imply rights always equally extensive. In some cases, it implies rights as extensive over the slave as over the inferior animals.

All rights, when the essence of them is spoken of, are powers; powers to an individual, which the governing members of the community guarantee; powers, more or less extensive, of making either a person or a thing subservient to the gratification of his desires. To be made to gratify the desire of an individual, is to be made to render him a service. And the term service may, fortunately, be applied to both persons and things. A man receives a service from the field when it produces a crop, as well as from the servant and the horse who ploughed it. In one meaning of the word service, it implies only active service, or that rendered by the voluntary operations of sentient beings. In the present case, however, it is employed to denote both active and passive services. It is evident, that in every case in which any thing inanimate is rendered subservient to the gratification of a desire, the service is, properly speaking, a passive service. It is also evident, that even animate beings are rendered subservient to the gratification of desires in a way which may equally be called passive.

It is necessary to request attention to the explanation which is here given of the meaning in which the term service is to be employed; as both the English and the Roman lawyers use it in a very restricted sense. Here it is employed to denote the whole of that ministration to the gratification of our desires, which we are entitled, in consequence of rights, to derive either from persons or from things. Rights are powers, and the powers are means for the obtaining of services. We have now, therefore, a language, by the help of which we may speak with tolerable clearness.

Our object is to define rights, and rights are powers. But these powers can be defined, only by a reference to the services which they are the means of obtaining.

The first thing, therefore, to be done for the definition of rights is, to make out a list of all the kinds of services, which the legislature permits an individual to derive, first, from persons, and secondly, from things. This would not be a matter of very great difficulty. It would be right to begin with the most simple cases, and go on to the more complex. Thus, of the services derivable from a person, some are limited to a single species of act, and that within a limited time, and at a particular place. Others are services, consisting of various acts, limited or not limited in space and time. And lastly, are the whole services which a man is capable of rendering; without limitation as to either space or time. Considerable pains would be necessary to make the list complete; and not only considerable pains, but considerable logic would be necessary, to classify the services, in other words, make them up into lots, the most convenient for the purpose in question; and to fix the extent of each by an exact definition. It is obvious, that as soon as all the possible gradations, in the services which one human being can render to another, are exhibited by such enumeration and assortment, it is easy for the legislature to point out exactly whatever portion of these services it is its will to give any individual a right to.

The same considerations apply to the class of things. In being made subservient to the gratification of our desires, they also render services. In proportion as a man has the right to derive those services from them, they are said to be his property. The whole of the services, which are capable of being derived from them, may, without much difficulty, be enumerated and classified; and when they are so, those which it may be the pleasure of the legislature to make any one's property, may be very easily and distinctly pointed out.

We may take land for an example. All the different services which are capable of being derived from the land may be enumerated, and, being classed under convenient heads, may be referred to with perfect certainty; and any portion of them, which is made the property of any individual, may thus be accurately described. A man may have a right simply to pasture a field; to pasture it for a day, or a year, or a hundred years. He may have a right to crop it; and that either in a particular manner, or in any manner he pleases; for a year, or for any other time. He may have a right to use it for any purpose, and that during a limited time, or an unlimited time. The services which it is capable of rendering may belong to him in common with a number of other persons, or they may all belong to himself.

In illustration of this subject, we may notice a classification of the services derivable from the land, made, though very rudely, by the English law. Blackstone, who, like other English lawyers, has, on this, as on all other occasions, no idea of any other classification, than that which is made by the technical terms of the English law, has distinguished certain lots of the services, derivable from the land, under the name of "Estates therein; Estates with respect to, 1st, Quantity of interest; 2dly, Time of Enjoyment; 3dly, Number and connection of the tenants:" That is, estates in fee simple, comprehending the whole of the services which are capable of being derived from the land, unlimited in point of time; estates in fee tail, implying always limitation in point of time, and often a limitation in respect to some of the services; estates for years; estates at will; estates at sufferance; estates on condition; estates in remainder; estates in reversion; estates in jointenancy; estates in coparcenary; estates in common. The Roman law has made no enumeration or classification of the services derivable from any thing, not even from the land. It speaks of property in the abstract, and in two states; property in possession, and property in action. The English law does the same thing in regard to all other property but the land. "Property, in chattels personal, is either in possession or in action," says Blackstone. He does, indeed, add, "The property of chattels personal is liable to remainders, if created by will, to jointenancy, and to tenancy in common."

The services derivable from other articles of property than land, need not be divided under many heads. A piece of plate, for example, may render certain services without alteration of its form; it may be incapable of rendering other services till it has received an alteration of its form. It is chiefly, therefore, by limitation, of time, that the various quantities of interest in such articles need to be determined. A man's right may extend to the use of a silver cup, for a day, or a year, or for his life. During this time the different services which it is capable of rendering have no occasion to be divided. They go naturally altogether. An unlimited right to its services implies the power of using it, either with or without alteration of its form, and without limitation of time. In most instances the limited right would be called loan, though, in the case of heirlooms and some others, there is a limited use to which the term loan is not customarily applied.

In speaking of the rights which a man may have to persons; as master, as father, as husband, and so on; there is one case so remarkable, that it requires a few words to be added in its explanation. It is that of one's own person. In this case the rights of the individual have no proper limitation beyond the obligations under which he is laid, in consequence either of the rights conferred upon others, or of the means which are thought necessary for protecting them.

If we have enabled our readers to form a tolerable conception of what we desire to be accomplished under the title of an enumeration and commodious classification of the services derivable from persons and things, we have performed what we proposed. The enumeration and classification, themselves, are evidently incommensurate with the design of an article in the present work. That they are practicable may be confidently taken for granted. In fact, they amount to nothing more than a description of the different degrees in which the property of a thing may be possessed; a point which is decided upon in every legal dispute. If this be done, from time to time, for one article after another, it may be done once for all.

We have already said, that rights are powers, powers for the obtaining of certain services. We have also said, that those powers can be defined only by a reference to the services which they are the means of obtaining. When those services are enumerated and classified, what remains is easy. A right to those services must begin; and it may end. The legislature has only to determine what fact shall be considered as giving a beginning to each right, and what shall be considered as putting an end to it, and then the whole business is accomplished.

It is evident that, for the definition of rights, two things are necessary. The first is, an exact description of the extent of the right; the second is, the description of the fact which gives birth to it. The extent of the right is described by reference to the lots of services, in the title to which services all rights consist. The facts, which the convenient enjoyment of rights has pointed out as the fittest for giving commencement to rights, have been pretty well ascertained from the earliest period of society; and there has, in fact, been a very great conformity with respect to them in the laws of all nations.

The following is an imperfect enumeration of them:—An expression of the will of the legislature, when it makes any disposition with regard to property; Occupancy, when a man takes what belongs to nobody; Labour; Donation; Contract; Succession. Of these six causes of the commencement of a right there is a remarkable distinction between the first three and the last three. The first three give commencement to a right in favour of one individual, without necessarily putting an end to a right enjoyed by any other individual. The last three give commencement to a right in favour of one individual, only by making the same right to cease in favour of another individual. When a man, by donation, gives a horse to another man, the horse ceases to be the property of the one man by the very same act by which he becomes the property of the other; so in the case of sale, or any other contract.

It is necessary for the legislature, in order that each man may know what are the objects of desire which he may enjoy, to fix, not only what are the facts which shall give commencement to a right, but what are the facts which shall put an end to it. In respect to these facts, also, there is a great harmony in the laws of all nations.

There is first the will of the legislature. When it confers a right, it may confer it, either for a limited, or for an unlimited time. In the term unlimited time, we include the power of tradition, or transfer, in all its shapes. If the time is limited, by the declaration of the legislature, either to a certain number of years, or the life of the party, the fact which terminates the right is obvious. If a man possesses a right, unlimited in point of time, the events are three by which it has been commonly fixed that it may be terminated: 1. some expression of his own will, in the way of gift or contract; 2. some act of delinquency; or, 3. his death.

The possessor of a right, unlimited in point of time, may, in the way of gift or contract, transfer his right either for a limited or for an unlimited time. Thus the owner of a piece of land may lease it for a term of years. He may also, in this way, convey the whole of the services which it is capable of rendering, or only a part of them. In this transaction, one event gives birth to a right in favour of the man who receives the lease, and terminates a right which was possessed by the man who gives it; another event, namely, the arrival of the period assigned for the termination of the lease, terminates the right of the man who had received the lease, and revives the former right of the man who gave it.

Acts of delinquency have been made to terminate rights, by the laws of most nations, in the various modes of forfeiture and pecuniary penalty.

The mode in which the event of death should terminate rights has been variously regulated. Sometimes it has been allowed to terminate them simply; and what a man left at his death was open to the first occupant. All but rude nations, however, have determined the persons to whom the rights, which a man possessed without limitation of time, shall pass at his death. The will of the former owner, when expressed, is commonly allowed to settle the matter. When that is not expressed, it has by most legislators been regulated, that his rights shall pass to his next of kin.

What is the extent of each right; by what event it shall receive its commencement; and by what event it shall be terminated;—this is all which is necessary to be pre-determined with respect to it. To do this is the duty of the legislature. When it is done, the inquiry of the judge is clear and simple. Does such a right belong to such a man? This question always resolves itself into two others. Did any of the events, which give commencement to a right, happen in this case? And did any of those events, which terminate a right, not happen in this case? These are questions of fact, as distinguished from law; and are to be determined by the production of evidence. If a man proves that an event which gives commencement to a right, happened in his case, and if another man cannot prove that an event which terminates a right happened subsequently in that case, the right of the first man is established.

If we have now ascertained the importance and practicability of a civil code, and have shown what is to be done in order to obtain the benefit of it, we shall conclude, with some confidence, that we have rendered a great service to mankind. We proceed to the consideration of the penal code. The object of that code is, the acts by which rights may be violated.