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CHAPTER IX.

COMMUNION. LOCOMOTION, EMIGRATION.

6. THE freedom of communion is one of the most precious and necessary rights of the individual, and one of the indispensable elements of all advancing humanity-so much so, indeed, that it is one of those elements of liberty, which would have never been singled out, had not experience shown that it forms invariably one of the first objects of attack, when arbitrary power wishes to establish itself, and one of the first objects of conquest, when an unfree people declares itself free.

I have dwelled on the primordial right of communion in the Political Ethics at great length, and endeavored to show that the question is not whether free communion or a fettered press be conducive to more good, but that everything in the individual and in nations depends in a great measure upon communion, and that free communion is a pre-existing condition. The only question is, how to select the best government with it, and shielding it, unless, indeed, we were speaking of tribes in a state of tutelage, ruled over by some highly advanced nation.

In this place we only enumerate freedom of communion as one of the primary elements of civil liberty. It is an element of all civil liberty. No one can imagine himself free if his communion with his fellows is interrupted or submitted to surveillance; but it is the Anglican race which first established it on a large scale, broadly and nationally acknowledged.

Free nations demand and guarantee free communion of speech, the right of assembling and publicly speaking, for it is communion of speech in this form which is peculiarly exposed to abridgment or suppression by the public power; they guarantee the liberty of the press, and, lastly, the sacredness of epistolary communion.

It is a very striking fact that, although the constitution of the United States distinctly declares that the government of the United States shall only have the power and authority positively granted in that instrument, so that, in a certain respect, it was unnecessary to say what the government should not have the right to do, still, in the very first article of the Additions and Amendments of the Constitution, congress is forbidden to make any "law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

The reader will keep in mind that the framers of our constitution went out of their way and preferred to appear inconsistent, rather than omit the enumeVOL. I.-10

ration of those important liberties, that of conscience, as it is generally called, that of communion, and of petitioning; and the reader will remember, moreover, that these rights were added as amendments. They must then have appeared very important to those who made our constitution, both on account of their intrinsic importance, and because so often attacked by the power-holders. Let the reader also remember that, if it be thus important to abridge the power of government to interfere with free communion, it is at least equally important that no person or number of men interfere, in any manner, with this sacred right. Oppression does not come from government or official bodies alone. The worst oppression is of a social character, or by a multitude.

The English have established the right of communion, as so many other precious rights by common law, by decisions, by struggles, by revolution. All the guarantee they have for the unstinted enjoyment of the right lies in the fact that the whole nation says with one accord, as it were: Let them try to take it away.

It is the same with our epistolary communion. The right of freely corresponding is unquestionably one of the dearest as well as most necessary of civilized man; yet, our forefathers were so little acquainted with a police government, that no one thought of enumerating the sacredness of letters along with the freedom of speech and the liberty of the press. The liberty of correspondence stands between the two: free word, free letter, free print. The framers did not think of it, as the first law

makers of Rome are said to have omitted the punishment of parricide. Yet we, too, say: Let any one try to infringe the sacredness of letters.

In all the late struggles for liberty on the continent of Europe, the sacredness of letters was insisted upon, not from abstract notions, but for the very practical reason that governments had been in the habit of disregarding it. Of course, they now do so again. The English parliament took umbrage, a few years ago, at the liberty a minister had taken of ordering the opening of letters of certain political exiles residing in England, and although he stated that it had been the habit of all administrations to order it under certain circumstances, he promised to abstain in future. In the United States there is no process or means known to us, not even by writ of a court, we believe, by which a letter could be extracted from the post-office, except by him to whom it is addressed; and as to the executive unduly opening letters, it would be cause for instant impeachment.

Quite recently, in the month of April, 1853, it appeared in the prosecution of several persons of distinction at Paris, for giving wrong and injurious news to foreign papers, that their letters had not only been opened at the post-office, but that the originals had been kept back, and copies had been sent to the recipients, with a postscript, written by the government officer, for the purpose of fraudu lently explaining the different handwriting. It stated that the correspondent had a sore hand. When the counsel for the accused said that the falsifying officer ought to be on the bench of the ac

cused, the court justified the prefect of the police, on the ground of "reasons of state." No commentary is necessary on such self-vilification of governments; but this may be added, that these outrages were committed even without a formal warrant from any one, but on the sole command of the police. Are we, then, wrong in calling such governments police governments? It is not from a desire to stigmatize these governments. It is on account of the prevailing principle, and the stigma is a natural consequence of this principle.1

1 In the decision of the appellate court in the same case we find this to be the chief argument, that government establishes postoffices, and cannot be expected to lend its hand to the promotion of mischief, by carrying letters of evil doers. This is totally fallacious. Government does not establish post-offices, but society establishes them, though it may be through government.

If it did, it is not a benefit done by a second party, as when A makes a present to B, but government is simply and purely an agent; and, what is more, the right of establishing post-offices is not an inherent attribute of government, such as the administration of justice or making war. Government merely becomes the public carrier, for the sake of general convenience. There are many private posts, and governments without government postoffices, for instance, the republic of Hamburg.

The opening of letters without proper warrant is a frightful perversion of power, and though government should be able to get at secret machinations, the secret of letters is a primordial condition. Government might, undoubtedly, know many useful things, if the sacredness of catholic confession were broken into: but that is considered a primordial and ante-political condition. So, many codes do not force a son to testify against a father, the family affection is considered a primordial condition. The very state of society, for which it is worth living, is invaded, if the correspondence is exposed to this sort of government burglary.

The argument is simply this. Man is destined to live in society,

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