Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 4.djvu/393

377 MEANING OF THE TERM LIBERTY: 37/ property unless declared to be forfeited by the judgment of his peers or the law of the land," referring, of course, to the thirty- ninth article. In another place he discusses the subject more at length, and after defining the absolute rights of individuals, which are so in their primary and strictest sense, such as would belong to their persons merely in a state of nature, and which every man is entitled to enjoy whether out of society or in it," he goes on to enumerate them : ** These rights may be reduced to three principal or primary articles : the right of personal security" (under which he includes Hfe, limb, health, and reputation, the same rights which Coke and other commentators on the thirty- ninth article include under the terms " aliquo modo destruatur," and which may fairly be included under the term " life " in our constitutions), "the right of personal liberty, and the right of pri- vate property, because, as there is no other known method of compulsion or of abridging man's natural free will but by an infringement of one or the other of these importants rights, the preservation of these, inviolate, may justly be said to include the preservation of our civil immunities in their largest and most exten- sive sense." ^ Blackstone defines personal Hberty to be the *' power of locomotion, of changing situation, or moving one's person to whatever place one's inclination may direct, without imprisonment or restraint, unless by due course of law," and he observes that it is perhaps the most important of all civil rights. He means by personal liberty simply freedom from restraint of the person. It is instructive to note that Blackstone, in discussing each " absolute '* right, points out that it is declared and secured by the famous article of the Great Charter. He cites the words " nullus liber homo aliquo modo destruatur " as the constitutional security for the right of life or personal security ; the words " capiatur vel imprisonetur " for the right of personal liberty, and the words *' dissaisiatur de libero tenemento " for the right of private property. It is evident, there- fore, that his classification of fundamental rights under the terms tors, is derived from the thirty-ninth article. It is evident, also, that he had no conception of religious liberty, liberty of press and speech, or political Hberty (meaning thereby the right to take part in the government, e. g, the right to vote) as absolute 1 I Bl. Corn's, chapter on " Absolute Rights of Persons."
 * ' which are usually called their liberties," to be ** those rights
 * Hfe," " liberty," and " property," like that of all other commenta-