But the most important and the most cherished
constitutional rights must possess something of elasticity. It must be
necessary at times to go back to the original object for which those
rights have been conferred and secured. That original object is the
safety and welfare of the whole body corporate--of the entire nation.
And if that safety and welfare at times require the sacrifice, a wise
ruler will not hesitate to demand it of the people, or to impose it on
them for their own good. So another principle of the constitution is the
absolute freedom of action for all the subjects of the sovereign; yet
that principle is infringed by more than one statute: Factory Acts,
which limit the hours of even voluntary labor; Education Acts, which
compel the parent to a certain line of conduct toward his children; each
in their way substitute another rule for that entire freedom of action
which, as has been said before, is the fundamental principle of the
constitution; but they make the substitution on the reasonable ground
that the course of action which they compel is for the benefit, not only
of the individual constrained, but of the whole community of which he is
a member, and for whose welfare all laws and constitutions exist.
One of the grounds of complaint against the exercise of this power,
which had been alleged by some of the opponents of the government, had
been that Sir James Graham's conduct had been dictated by an unworthy
subservience to some of the despotic sovereigns of the Continent.
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