When two men meet one upon the highway, or in the wilderness,
have they a right to dispose of his life, liberty, or property at
their pleasure, simply because they are the more numerous party?
Or is he bound to submit to lose his life, liberty, or property,
if they demand it, merely because he is the less numerous party?
Or, because they are more numerous than he, is he bound to
presume that they are governed only by superior wisdom, and the
principles of justice, and by no selfish passion that can lead
them to do him a wrong? Yet this is the principle, which it is
claimed should govern men in all their civil relations to each
other. Mankind fall in company with each other on the highway or
in the wilderness of life, and it is claimed that the more
numerous party, simply by virtue of their superior numbers, have
the right arbitrarily to dispose of the life, liberty, and
property of the minority; and that the minority are bound, by
reason of their inferior numbers, to practise abject submission,
and consent to hold their natural rights, any, all, or none, as
the case may be, at the mere will and pleasure of the majority;
as if all a man's natural rights expired, or were suspended by
the operation of a paramount law, the moment he came into the
presence of superior numbers.
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