The origin of government in a compact entered into by
individuals, each with all and all with each, sacrificed the
rights of society, and assumed each individual to be in himself
an independent sovereignty. If logically carried out, there
could be no such crime as treason, there could be no state, and
no public authority. This new theory transfers to society the
sovereignty which that asserted for the individual, and asserts
social despotism, or the absolutism of the state. It asserts
with sufficient energy public authority, or the right of the
people to govern; but it leaves no space for individual rights,
which society must recognize, respect, and protect. This was the
grand defect of the ancient Graeco-Roman civilization. The
historian explores in vain the records of the old Greek and Roman
republics for any recognition of the rights of individuals not
held as privileges or concessions from the state. Society
recognized no limit to her authority, and the state claimed over
individuals all the authority of the patriarch over his
household, the chief over his tribe, or the absolute monarch over
his subjects. 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