§3. The rights here mentioned are _natural_ rights. They are so called because they are ours by nature or by birth; and they can not be justly taken from us or alienated. Hence they are also called _inalienable_. We may, however, forfeit them by some offense or crime. If, for example, a man is fined for breaking a law, he loses his right to the money he is obliged to pay. By stealing, he forfeits his liberty, and may be justly imprisoned. By committing murder, he forfeits his right to life, and may be hanged.
§4. Rights are also called personal, political, civil, and religious. _Personal rights_, or the _rights of persons_, are rights belonging to persons as individuals, and consist of the right of _personal security_, or the right to be secure from injury to our bodies, or persons, or our good names; the right of _personal liberty_, or the liberty of moving, acting, or speaking without unjust restraint; and the _right of property_, or the right to acquire and enjoy property. The terms _rights of person_ and _rights of persons_, or _personal rights_, have not the same meaning. The rights of person, as the term is generally used, does not include the right of property; personal rights include both the right of property and the rights of person.
§5. _Political rights_ are those which belong to the people in their political capacity. The word _political_, in a general sense, relates to government. The whole body of the people united under one government, is called the political body, or body politic. The right of the people to choose and establish for themselves a form of government, or constitution, and the right to elect persons to make and execute the laws, are political rights. The right of voting at elections is therefore a political right.
§6. _Civil rights_ are those which are secured to the citizens by the laws of the state. Some make no distinction between civil rights and political rights. In a proper sense--that in which the terms are here used--there is this difference: political rights are those secured by the political or fundamental law, called the constitution; civil rights are more properly those which are secured by the civil or municipal laws. The difference will more clearly appear from the definition elsewhere given of the political and civil laws. (Chap. III. §5, 6.)