Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/375

 opinion, by gi\ing validity to such claims, you destroy the very idea of the right to form a new government. Vattel calls government the totality of persons, estates, and effects, formed by every individual of the new society, and that totality represented by the governing power. How can the totality exist while an antecedent right exists elsewhere? See Grotius, p. 4, which I have already read, and note 29: Because the design and good of civil society necessarily require, that the natural and acquired rights of each member should admit of limi- tations several ways, and to a certain degree, by the authority of him or them, in whose hands the sovereign authority is lodged. When we formed a new govern- ment, did there exist any authority that limited our rights? How can the totality exist, if any other person or persons have an existing claim upon you? It appears to me, that that equality which is involved in a state of nature, cannot exist while such claim exists. The court will recollect what I have already read out of Vattel, in the 15 and 18 sections. The equality here ascribed to independent nations, is equally ascribed to men in a state of nature. A moral society of persons cannot exist, without this absolute equality. The ex- istence of individuals in a state of nature depends in like manner upon, and is inseparable from such equalit}\

" Rights as before mentioned, Vattel, p. 8 and 9, are divided into internal and exteiiial: of external rights, he makes the distinction of perfect and imper- fect. I beseech your honours to fix this distinction in your minds. The perfect external right only, is accom- panied with the right of constraint. The imperfect right, loses that quality, and leaves it to the party, to comply or not to comply with it. When the former

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