Stephen J. Field Quotes

I do not intend to take a position, which, if maintained, would abridge the freedom of discussion or restrain the liberty of the press. But I do contend that every principle of political justice, nay, every principle of humanity, demands that discussions shall not be persisted in, when it is manifest that their inevitable consequence is to render insecure … lives and property

Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing.

No man's life shall be taken away; no man's honor or good name shall be stained; no man's person shall be arrested, restrained, banished, dismembered, or any ways punished; no man shall be deprived of his wife or children; no man's goods or estate shall be taken away from him, or any way damaged, under color of law or countenance of authority, unless it be by the virtue or equity of some express law of the country, warranting the same, established by a General Court and sufficiently published

The object of government is the protection of person, property, and reputation from the foes which assail them. Government may do other things: it may carry the mails, run the express, own and operate the railroads; but its fundamental function is to furnish protection from open violence or secret fraud. If it adequately protects person, property, and reputation, it is a just government, though it do nothing else; if it fails to protect these primary rights, if the person is left to defend himself, his property, his reputation by his own strong arm, there is no government.

The essence and almost the quintessence of good government is to protect property and its rights.... The major business of government becomes, therefore, the problem of keeping in due subjection to law and order the dangerous mass of poor and vicious.

The more advanced nations have laws recognizing the sanctity of property and the protection of person, but international laws and ethics have not kept pace with intra-national laws and ethics.

Defence for me is so important because I do not want anyone to trespass and invade my property because that goal is my property.

The protection of a man's person is more sacred than the protection of his property.

Left to me, the whole purpose of government is for the security of the citizens, like the security of lives and property.

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

The dichotomy between personal liberties and property rights is a false one. Property does not have rights. People have rights.

The real protection of life and property, always and everywhere.

The absolute rights of individuals may be resolved into the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and the right to enjoy and acquire property

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The Laws ought to be so framed, as to secure the Safety of every Citizen as much as possible.

The end of all political associations is, the preservation of the rights of man, which rights are liberty, property, and security; that the nation is the source of all sovereignty derived from it...

The law may do what it will with the owner of property, its just power will still attach to the cent.

It is the obligation of every government to yield protection to their citizens as the consideration for their obedience

The reason why men enter into society is the preservation of their property; and the end while they choose and authorize a legislature is that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the society, to limit the power and moderate the dominion of every part and member of the society.

Property, once recognized, gave rise to the first rules of justice; for, to secure each man his own, it had to be possible for each to have something. Besides, as men began to look forward to the future, and all had something to lose, every one had reason to apprehend that reprisals would follow any injury he might do to another.

The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like law, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property.

We all want security …. But we don’t need to simplify the debate to such an extent that we simply say we have to give up our liberties.

…when Rights are placed upon, or made dependent upon property, they are on the most precarious of all tenures.

I know no human being exempt from the law. The law is the security of the people of England; it is the security of every person that is governed, and of every person that governs.

There is no security of property, where a despotic authority can possess itself of the property of the subject against his consent. Neither is there such security, where the consent is merely nominal and delusive.