The direct and indirect influence of the body of
freemen admitted to a voice in public affairs, in determining the
resolutions and action of the state, no doubt tempered in
practice to some extent the authority of the state, and prevented
acts of gross oppression; but in theory the state was absolute,
and the people individually were placed at the mercy of the
people collectively, or, rather, the majority of the collective
people.
Under ancient republicanism, there were rights of the state and
rights of the citizen, but no rights of man, held independently
of society, and not derived from God through the state. The
recognition of these rights by modern society is due to
Christianity: some say to the barbarians, who overthrew the Roman
empire; but this last opinion is not well founded. The barbarian
chiefs and nobles had no doubt a lively sense of personal freedom
and independence, but for themselves only. They had no
conception of personal freedom as a general or universal right,
and men never obtain universal principles by generalizing
particulars. They may give a general truth a particular
application, but not a particular truth--understood to be a
particular truth--a general or universal application. They are
too good logicians for that. The barbarian individual freedom
and personal independence was never generalized into the doctrine
of the rights of man, any more than the freedom of the master has
been generalized into the right of his slaves to be free.
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