CHAPTER VIII
Restraints Through Invading Liberty
There are certain rights which the Constitution of the United States protects from State invasion—they are many;—but a few which it especially cherishes by protecting them from both State and individual invasion. Broadly speaking, general inherent rights are of the former class, while those which originate in the Constitution itself are alone of the latter. I am not attempting to state this with exactness, or that it may be definitely relied upon, but as a view generally and alone for another purpose. Now, while "liberty" is of the former class, liberty to engage in national trade is of the select few in the higher class coming under the direct protection of the national law, no matter by whom invaded.
While the Constitution leaves the great body of liberty to the protection of the States, except where invaded by the States, it also recognizes it as an "inalienable" right, and protects it even from the States themselves. It can, therefore, in no degree be doubted that liberty is a right of every citizen of the United States. But what is liberty? Simply "the power of election or free choice." "In this consists freedom, viz: in our being able to act or not to act as we shall choose or will."[1] As at common law, no invasion of "free discretion," that is, liberty to engage in one's own unsold trade,[2] is ever
51
