it cannot furnish with such things as are most necessary, has not a right to leave it.
2. If the body of the society, or he who represents it, absolutely fail to discharge their obligations towards a citizen, the latter may withdraw himself. For if one of the contracting parties does not observe his engagements, the other is no longer bound to fulfil his; for the contract is reciprocal between the society and <106> its members. It is on the same principle also that the society may expel a member who violates its laws.
3. If the major part of the nation, or the sovereign who represents it, attempt to enact laws relative to matters in which the social compact cannot oblige every citizen to submission, those who are averse to these laws have a right to quit the society, and go settle elsewhere. For instance, if the sovereign, or the greater part of the nation, will allow but one religion in the state, those who believe and profess another religion have a right to withdraw, and to take with them their families and effects. For they cannot be supposed to have subjected themselves to the authority of men, in affairs of conscience;* and if the society suffers and is weakened by their departure, the blame must be imputed to the intolerant party: for it is they who fail in their observance of the social compact,— it is they who violate it, and force the others to a separation. We have elsewhere touched upon some other instances of this third case,—that of a popular state wishing to have a sovereign (§33),—and that of an independent nation taking the resolution to submit to a foreign power (§195).
Those who quit their country for any lawful reason, with a design to settle elsewhere, are called emigrants, and take their families and property with them.
Their right to emigrate may arise from several sources. 1. In the cases we have just mentioned (§223), it is a natural right, which is certainly reserved to each individual in the very compact itself by which civil society was formed.
2. The liberty of emigration may, in certain cases, be secured to the citizens by a fundamental law of the state. The citizens of Neufchatel and Valangin in Switzerland may quit the country and carry off their effects at their own pleasure, without even paying any duties.
3. It may be voluntarily granted them by the sovereign.
4. Finally, this right may be derived from some treaty made with a foreign power, by which a sovereign has promised to leave full liberty to those of his subjects, who, for a certain reason, on account of religion for instance, desire to transplant themselves into the territories of that power. There are such treaties between the German princes, particularly for cases in which religion is concerned. In Switzerland likewise, a citizen of Bern who wishes to emigrate to Fribourg and there profess the religion of the place, and reciprocally a citizen of Fribourg who, for a similar reason, is desirous of removing to Bern, has a right to quit his native country, and carry off with him all his property.
It appears from several passages in history, particularly the history of Switzerland and the neighbouring countries, that the law of nations, established there by custom some ages back, did not permit a state to receive the subjects of another state into the number of its citizens. This vicious custom had no other <107> foundation than the slavery to which the people were then reduced. A prince, a lord, ranked his subjects under the head of his private property: he calculated their number, as he did that of his flocks; and, to the disgrace of human nature, this strange abuse is not yet every where eradicated.
§226. If the sovereign infringes their right, he injures them.
If the sovereign attempts to molest those who have a right to emigrate, he does them an injury; and the injured individuals may lawfully implore the protection of the power who is willing to receive them. Thus we have seen Frederic William,75 king of Prussia, grant his protection to the emigrant protestants of Saltzburgh.
The name of supplicants is given to all fugitives who implore the protection of a sovereign against the nation or prince they have quitted. We cannot solidly establish what the law of nations determines with respect to them, until we have treated of the duties of one nation towards others.
Finally, exile is another manner of leaving our country. An exile is a man driven from the place of his settlement, or constrained to quit it, but without a mark of infamy. Banishment is a similar expulsion, with a mark of infamy annexed.* Both may be for a limited time, or for ever. If an exile or banished man had his settlement in his own country, he is exiled or banished from his country. It is however proper to observe that common usage applies also the terms, exile and banishment, to the expulsion of a foreigner who is driven from a country where he had no settlement, and to which he is, either for a limited time or for ever, prohibited to return.
As a man may be deprived of any right whatsoever by way of punishment,—exile, which deprives him of the right of dwelling in a certain place, may be inflicted as a punishment: banishment is always one; for a mark of infamy cannot be set on any one, but with the view of punishing him for a fault, either real or pretended.
When the society has excluded one of its members by a perpetual banishment, he is only banished from the lands of that society, and it cannot hinder him from living wherever else he pleases; for, after having driven him out, it can no longer claim any authority over him. The contrary, however, may take place by particular conventions between two or more states. Thus every member of the Helvetic confederacy may banish its own subjects out of the territories of Switzerland in general; and in this case the banished person will not be allowed to live in any of the cantons, or in the territories of their allies.
Exile is divided into voluntary and involuntary. It is voluntary, when a man quits his settlement, to escape some punish-<108>ment, or to avoid some calamity,—and involuntary, when it is the effect of a superior order.
Sometimes a particular place is appointed, where the exiled person is to remain during his exile; or a certain space is particularised, which he is forbid to enter. These various circumstances and modifications depend on him who has the power of sending into exile.
§229. The exile and banished man have a right to live somewhere.
A man, by being exiled or banished, does not forfeit the human character, nor consequently his right to dwell somewhere on earth. He derives this right from nature, or rather from its author, who has destined the earth for the habitation of mankind; and the introduction of property cannot have impaired the right which every man has to the use of such things as are absolutely necessary,—a right which he brings with him into the world at the moment of his birth.
But though this right is necessary and perfect in the general view of it, we must not forget that it is but imperfect with respect to each particular country. For, on the other hand, every nation has a right to refuse admitting a foreigner into her territory, when he cannot enter it without exposing the nation to evident danger, or doing her a manifest injury. What she owes to herself, the care of her own safety, gives her this right; and in virtue of her
