If a government were to be established and supported solely by
that portion of the people who lay claim to superior knowledge,
there would be some consistency in their saying that the common
people should not be received as jurors, with power to judge of
the justice of the laws. But so long as the whole people (or all
the male adults) are presumed to be voluntary parties to the
government, and voluntary contributors to it support, there is no
consistency in refusing to any one of them more than to another
the right to sit as juror, with full power to decide for himself
whether any law that is proposed to be enforced in any particular
case, be within the objects of the association.
The conclusion, therefore, is, that, in a government formed by
voluntary association, or on the theory of voluntary association,
and voluntary support, (as all the North American governments
are,) no law can rightfully be enforced by the association in its
corporate capacity, against the goods, rights, or person of any
individual, except it be such as all the members of the
association agree that it may enforce.
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