those among them who happen to have any theory or opinion on the
subject. It is the political tradition of the country. The
state, as defined by the elder Adams, is held to be a voluntary
association of individuals. Individuals create civil society,
and may uncreate it whenever they judge it advisable. Prior to
the Southern Rebellion, nearly every American asserted with
Lafayette, "the sacred right of insurrection" or revolution, and
sympathized with insurrectionists, rebels, and revolutionists,
wherever they made their appearance. Loyalty was held to be the
correlative of royalty, treason was regarded as a virtue, and
traitors were honored, feasted, and eulogized as patriots, ardent
lovers of liberty, and champions of the people. The fearful
struggle of the nation against a rebellion which threatened its
very existence may have changed this.

That there is, or ever was, a state of nature such as the theory
assumes, may be questioned. Certainly nothing proves that it is,
or ever was, a real state. That there is a law of nature is
undeniable. All authorities in philosophy, morals, politics, and
jurisprudence assert it; the state assumes it as its own
immediate basis, and the codes of all nations are founded on it;
universal jurisprudence, the jus qentium of the Romans, embodies
it, and the courts recognize and administer it. It is the reason
and conscience of civil society, and every state acknowledges its
authority. But the law of nature is as much in force in civil
society as out of it. Civil law does not abrogate or supersede
natural law, but presupposes it, and supports itself on it as its
own ground and reason. As the natural law, which is only natural
justice and equity dictated by the reason common to all men,
persists in the civil law, municipal or international, as its