{"id":2826,"date":"2019-11-18T11:39:17","date_gmt":"2019-11-18T16:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/?p=2826"},"modified":"2020-09-24T00:14:02","modified_gmt":"2020-09-24T04:14:02","slug":"merry-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/2019\/11\/18\/merry-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Merry Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Jessie Allen, School of Law, University of Pittsburgh<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

B<\/strong><\/em>o<\/em>ok the first. \u00a0Of the RIGHTS of PERSONS. \u00a0Chapter the first. \u00a0Of the absolute RIGHTS of INDIVIDUALS.<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/h1>\n<\/header>\n
\n

Black Stone Weekly is taking this week off to celebrate the holidays. \u00a0Just one quick note first. \u00a0In\u00a0this section<\/a>\u00a0Blackstone lays out his tripartite structure of individual rights: \u00a0security, liberty and property. \u00a0I doubt that it\u2019s accidental that there are three. \u00a0Three is a magic number, not just in Chritistianity, but in all sorts of contexts. \u00a0 There\u2019s the old saying, \u201cthe third time\u2019s the charm,\u201d and the superstition that unlucky things come in threes, and the good fairy\u2019s traditional grant of three wishes. \u00a0(And yes, I wanted to provide exactly three examples.) \u00a0There seems to be some kind of almost rhythmic attunement in Western culture, anyway, to three-part schemes. \u00a0When there are three of something, we tend to feel that we\u2019ve got it covered, we\u2019ve come to the end of a beat, the picture is complete. \u00a0Vaudevillians construct skits according to the rule \u201cthree times, and it\u2019s funny.\u201d \u00a0 But I digress. \u00a0Actually I wanted to point out what seems like an oddly anomolous claim in Blackstone\u2019s exposition of individual rights. \u00a0According to Blackstone, through the right of \u201csecurity\u201d English law provides its subjects with \u201cevery thing necessary for their support.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0Under \u201cseveral statutes enacted for the relief of the poor,\u201d \u00a0the \u201cindigent or wretched,\u201d may \u201cdemand a supply sufficient for all the necessities of life, from the more oppulent part of the community.\u201d \u00a0Without knowing the specific 18th century laws referenced here, it\u2019s pretty clear that this must be an overstatement. \u00a0Otherwise, the redistribution of property that Blackstone seems to be describing would hardly support the third and most famous of his holy trinity of liberal personal rights: \u00a0private property. \u00a0 On the other hand, a little bit of redistribution goes a long way toward legitimating laws that lock in the original distribution. \u00a0One of my great pleasures around Christmas is singing carols with my daughter \u2014 now eight. \u00a0A favorite is\u00a0Good King Wenceslas\u00a0<\/a>\u2014 the story of the pious monarch who ventures out into the snow, bearing provisions for a peasant \u2014 and whose saintly charity magically melts the snow where he walks. \u00a0 Singing this song, you can still \u00a0feel okay about all those presents under the tree, as long as you\u2019ve remembered to put something into the Operation Santa box in the school\u2019s lobby. \u00a0 As the final verse instructs, \u201cye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing.\u201d\u00a0So, in Blackstone\u2019s common law, the absolute prerogative of ownership is blessed with a pinch of security for those who own nothing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n

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Jessie Allen, School of Law, University of Pittsburgh Book the first. \u00a0Of the RIGHTS of PERSONS. \u00a0Chapter the first. \u00a0Of the absolute RIGHTS of INDIVIDUALS. Black Stone Weekly is taking this week off to...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[268,255,492],"tags":[132,200],"class_list":["post-2826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jurisprudence","category-law-and-philosophy","category-william-blackstone","tag-news","tag-william-blackstone"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pasVL2-JA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2826"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4021,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2826\/revisions\/4021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgehogsandfoxes.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}