In thus denying man's _natural_ right to life, it of course denies every other _natural_ right of human beings; and asserts that they have no _natural_ right to anything; but that, for all other things, as well as for life itself, they must depend wholly upon the good pleasure and discretion of the government.
In still another way, the government denies men's _natural_ right to life. And that is by denying their _natural_ right to make any of those contracts with each other, for buying and selling, borrowing and lending, giving and receiving, property, which are necessary, if men are to exist in any considerable numbers on the earth.
Even the few savages, who contrive to live, mostly or wholly, by hunting, fishing, and gathering wild fruits, without cultivating the earth, and almost wholly without the use of tools or machinery, are yet, _at times_, necessitated to buy and sell, borrow and lend, give and receive, articles of food, if no others, as their only means of preserving their lives. But, in civilized life, where but a small portion of men's labor is necessary for the production of food, and they employ themselves in an almost infinite variety of industries, and in the production of an almost infinite variety of commodities, it would be impossible for them to live, if they were wholly prohibited from buying and selling, borrowing and lending, giving and receiving, the products of each other's labor.
Yet the government of the United States--either acting separately, or jointly with the State governments--has heretofore constantly denied, and still constantly denies, the _natural_ right of the people, _as individuals_, to make their own contracts, for such buying and selling, borrowing and lending, and giving and receiving, such commodities as they produce for each other's uses.
I repeat that both the national and State governments have constantly denied the _natural_ right of individuals to make their own contracts. They have done this, sometimes by arbitrarily forbidding them to make particular contracts, and sometimes by arbitrarily qualifying the obligation of particular contracts, when the contracts themselves were naturally and intrinsically as just and lawful as any others that men ever enter into; and were, consequently, such as men have as perfect a _natural_ right to make, as they have to make any of those contracts which they are permitted to make.