I HAVE A RIGHT.
WE, as a nation, are remarkably fond of talking about our rights. The expression, 'I have a right,' is constantly in our mouths. This is one reason, among some others, why it is fortunate for us that we speak English, since this favorite phrase in more than one continental tongue has no precise equivalent.
Whether the nation's phrase grew out of the nation's character, or whether the happy possession of such a phrase has helped to mould that character, it is scarcely now worth while to inquire. Certain it is that those generations which make proverbs, make thereby laws which govern their children's children, and thus, perhaps, it comes to pass that this neat, independent, Anglo-Saxon phrase helps to get and keep for us the very rights it tells of. For, as under some governments it is true that the dearest and most inalienable rights of the race go by the name of privilege, indulgence, or immunity, a concession, and not an inheritance; a gift, and not a birthright; while ancient rights, in our sense of this word, merge into mere privileges held at the ruler's will, and having been once called privileges, may be exchanged by
