There is no particle of truth in the notion that the majority have a _right_ to rule, or to exercise arbitrary power over, the minority, simply because the former are more numerous than the latter. Two men have no more natural right to rule one, than one has to rule two. Any single man, or any body of men, many or few, have a natural right to maintain justice for themselves, and for any others who may need their assistance, against the injustice of any and all other men, without regard to their numbers; and majorities have no right to do any more than this. The relative numbers of the opposing parties have nothing to do with the question of right. And no more tyrannical principle was ever avowed, than that the will of the majority ought to have the force of law, without regard to its justice; or, what is the same thing, that the will of the majority ought always to be presumed to be in accordance with justice. Such a doctrine is only another form of the doctrine that might makes right.
When _two_ men meet _one_ upon the highway, or in the wilderness, have they a right to dispose of his life, liberty, or property at their pleasure, simply because they are the more numerous party? Or is he bound to submit to lose his life, liberty, or property, if they demand it, merely because he is the less numerous party? Or, because they are more numerous than he, is he bound to presume that they are governed only by superior wisdom, and the principles of justice, and by no selfish passion that can lead them to do him a wrong? Yet this is the principle, which it is claimed should govern men in all their civil relations to each other. Mankind fall in company with each other on the highway or in the wilderness of life, and it is claimed that the more numerous party, simply by virtue of their superior numbers, have the right arbitrarily to dispose of the life, liberty, and property of the minority; and that the minority are bound, by reason of their inferior numbers, to practise abject submission, and consent to hold their natural rights,--any, all, or none, as the case may be,--at the mere will and pleasure of the majority; as if all a man's natural rights expired, or were suspended by the operation of a paramount law, the moment he came into the presence of superior numbers.