idly.

In patriarchal times there could be no political questions about
rights. The head of the family was supreme and sole ruler and judge.
Even in Rome under an organized civil government the pater familias
was long left the power of life and death over the members of his
family. When families and tribes were combined in states, government
was long conducted on the theory that as the individual had belonged
to the family or tribe into which he was born or adopted, so he now
belonged to the state, to be directed and disposed of as the state
might order. What he might enjoy of life, liberty, or property was the
gift of the state, subject to revocation at will. Plato reflects this
theory in making Hippias declare that the measure of man's right is
what the state commands. The total abolition of the liberty of
innocent persons by holding them in slavery was not deemed any
infringement of any right of theirs. This theory was acted upon in
democratic as well as in monarchical states. Slavery was as lawful in
Athens, Sparta, and republican Rome as in Persia or Egypt. True, there
were rebellions and revolutions at times, but, though sometimes
provoked by oppression, they were usually to acquire the power of
government and not in defense of individual rights. The Plebeians
revolted to obtain a greater share in the governing power. The civil
wars of Marius and Sulla were not waged for liberty but for power. In
Sicily, where the slaves under Eunus had for a time wrested the
governing power from their masters, they did not hesitate to enslave
in turn.

The doctrine that the individual man has some rights by nature which
the state ought not to disregard had no place in ancient nor medieval
governments. The English Magna Charta purports to be a grant from the
king and, though framed by the barons and forced upon the king, it
contains no assertion of rights by nature. The rights claimed were
claimed as accustomed rights previously conferred and enjoyed, such as
the laws and customs of the time of Henry I. Apart from provisions as
to improved methods of administration, the language of the Charter
implies restoration rather than revolution.

So in the Petition of Right in the reign of Charles I, no appeal was
made to natural rights, but the demand was for accustomed privileges,
for the observance by the king of the old laws and customs of the
realm, especially those in force under Edward I and Edward III. In the
Petition, the Char