9. In order to do justice to this great subject; in order to treat it with perfect fairness, and in a manner becoming of me and of you, I must take the authorities _on both sides_. There are some great lawyers who have contended that the starving man is still guilty of felony or larceny, if he take food to satisfy his hunger; but there are a greater number of other, and still greater, lawyers, who maintain the contrary. The general doctrine of those who maintain the right to take, is founded on the law of nature; and it is a saying as old as the hills, a saying in every language in the world, that "_self-preservation_ is the _first law_ of nature." The law of nature teaches every creature to prefer the preservation of its own life to all other things. But, in order to have a fair view of the matter before us, we ought to inquire how it came to pass, that the laws were ever made to punish men as criminals, for taking the victuals, drink, or clothing, that they might stand in need of. We must recollect, then, that there was a time when no such laws existed; when men, like the wild animals in the fields, took what they were able to take, if they wanted it. In this state of things, all the land and all the produce belonged to all the people _in common_. Thus were men situated, when they lived under what is called the _law of nature_; when every one provided, as he could, for his self-preservation.
10. At length this state of things became changed: men entered into society; they made laws to restrain individuals from following, in certain cases, the dictates of their own will; they protected the weak against the strong; the laws secured men in possession of lands, houses, and goods, that were called THEIRS; the words MINE and THINE, which mean _my own_ and _thy own_, were invented to designate what we now call _a property_ in things. The law necessarily made it criminal in one man to take away, or to injure, the property of another man. It was, you will observe, even in this state of nature, always _a crime_ to do certain things against our neighbour. To kill him, to wound him, to slander him, to expose him to suffer from the want of food or raiment, or shelter. These, and many others, were crimes in the eye of the law of nature; but, to take share of a man's victuals or clothing; to go and insist upon sharing a part of any of the good things that he happened to have in his possession, could be _no crime_, because there was _no property_ in anything, except in man's body itself. Now, civil society was formed for the _benefit_ of the whole. The whole gave up their natural rights, in order that every one might, for the future, enjoy his life in greater security. This civil society was intended to change the state of man _for the better_. Before this state of civil society, the starving, the hungry, the naked man, had a right to go and provide himself with necessaries wherever he could find them. There would be sure to be some such necessitous persons in a state of civil society. Therefore, when civil society was established, it is impossible to believe that it _had not in view some provision for these destitute persons_. It would be monstrous to suppose the contrary. The contrary supposition would argue, that fraud was committed upon the mass of the people in forming this civil society; for, as the sparks fly upwards, so will there always be destitute persons to some extent or other, in _every community_, and such there are to now a considerable extent, even in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; therefore, the formation of the civil society must have been fraudulent or tyrannical upon any other supposition than that it made provision, in some way or other, for destitute persons; that is to say, for persons unable, from some cause or other, to provide for themselves the food and raiment sufficient to preserve them from perishing. Indeed, a provision for the destitute seems _essential to the lawfulness_ of civil society; and this appears to have been the opinion of BLACKSTONE, when, in the first Book and first Chapter of his Commentaries on the Laws of England, he says, "the law not only regards _life_ and _member_, and protects every man in the enjoyment of them, but also _furnishes him with every thing necessary for their support_. For there is no man so indigent or wretched, but he may _demand_ a supply _sufficient for all the necessaries of life_ from the more opulent part of the community, by means of the several statutes enacted for the relief of the poor; a humane provision _dictated_ by the _principles of society_."