# What exactly are "Civil Liberties"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 31, 2003, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-civil-liberties/165543 "2003-03-31T21:28:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-civil-liberties/165543/1 "2003-03-31T21:28:35Z")
This term gets batted around in the media like it is self-explanatory. However, I haven’t found a good, comprehensive explanation as to what civil liberties are exactly. I have gathered a few things on my own. Freedom of speech is generally considered to be a civil liberty while the right to bear arms is not. I am a registered Libertarian so I understand the “liberties” part while the term “civil liberties” seems to take on a meaning of its own. Does the term have a meaning that predates the ACLU or was it the ACLU what rights constitute civil liberties and which ones don’t? I realize this is treading really close to a debate but I really just want a good definition of what civil liberties are and possibly some reasons why those particular rights got lumped together under one heading. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-civil-liberties/165543/2 "2003-03-31T21:41:28Z")
I don’t know anything about the book beyond the title and author so I can’t recommend it but there is _World War I and the Origin of Civil Liberties in the United States_ by Paul L Murphy. ---
**Author:** ![akennett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ee59a6/32.png) [@akennett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/akennett)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-civil-liberties/165543/3 "2003-03-31T21:42:29Z")
From the text\* for my Intro to American Politics class, the definition is, “areas of personal freedom with which governments are constrained from interfering.” The text goes on to state that they are “protections of citizens from improper government actions” and divide them into two classes substantive (limits on what the gov’t can and can’t do) and procedural (how the gov’t may act, due-process for example). From the book I gather that civil liberties only encompasses those rights that are explicitely protected from action. The book lists Second Amendment protections of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms as among our civil liberties. I think that the ACLU just ignores this as it does not fit with the politics of the majority of the membership, and the mainstream media seems to defer to the ACLU on this, and most other civil liberty, points. - The text is Ginsberg, Benjamin, et al. _We the People: An Introduction to American Politics Third Edition_, copywrite 2001. ---
**Author:** ![pravnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8edcca/32.png) [@pravnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pravnik)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-civil-liberties/165543/4 "2003-03-31T21:43:05Z")
Well, how about a quote from Black’s Law Dictionary as a starting point? “Civil liberties. Personal, natural rights guaranteed and protected by the Constitution; _e.g._ freedom of speech, press, freedom from discrimination, etc. Body of law dealing with natural liberties, shorn of excesses which invade equal rights of others. Constitutionally, they are restraints on government.” ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-civil-liberties/165543/5 "2003-03-31T21:45:42Z")
> [@](#): > > Civil Liberties vs. Civil Rights > What’s the difference? > > Civil liberties: protections of citizens from improper > government action; stem from the Bill of Rights. > **(Negative freedoms—freedom from.)** > > [http://www.polisci.umn.edu/courses/fall2001/1001/003/kiosk/Lecnotes/LectureNotesWeek4.doc](http://www.polisci.umn.edu/courses/fall2001/1001/003/kiosk/Lecnotes/LectureNotesWeek4.doc) > > Civil Rights: obligations imposed on government to take positive action to protect citizens from any illegal actions of government agencies as well as of other private citizens; stem from equal protection clause of 14th Amendment. > **(Positive freedoms—freedom to.)** Most of the hits I got were for course syllabi, lecture notes, etc. ---
**Author:** ![brianmelendez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-civil-liberties/165543/6 "2003-03-31T21:47:45Z")
“Civil liberties” is usually a broader term than “civil rights,” but both are fairly definite terms in the law: > [@](#): > > _Civil rights_, an Americanism, refers generally to the individual rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights and by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Nineteenth Amendments, as well as by legislation such as the Voting Rights Act. These rights include especially the right to vote; freedom from involuntary servitude; the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property; privacy; due process; and equal protection of the law. Some of these rights, such as the right to vote, are restricted to citizens; others, such as the rights of due process and equal protection, apply equally to anyone within a jurisdiction. > > . . . . > > The phrase _civil liberties_ is more widely used than _civil rights_–that is, not just in AmE–to refer generally to the liberties guaranteed to all persons by law or custom against undue governmental inteference. _Civil rights_ is also sometimes used in this broader sense . . . . Bryan A. Garner, _A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage_ 158-59 (2d ed. 1995). I do not know how far back the terms go, but “civil rights” certainly predates the American Civil Liberties Union (founded [1920](http://www.aclu.org/about/aboutmain.cfm)): Congress enacted several statutes known as the “civil rights acts” in the Reconstruction era, and a few years later the Supreme Court decided The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883). ---
**Author:** ![brianmelendez](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@brianmelendez](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brianmelendez)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-civil-liberties/165543/7 "2003-03-31T22:11:01Z")
Both John Milton and Alexander Hamilton used the term “civil liberty” in a sense at least approaching its modern meaning: > [@](#): > > For this is not the liberty which we can hope, that no grievance ever should arise in the commonwealth, that let no man in this world expect; but when complaints are freely heard, deeply considered, and speedily reformed, then is the utmost bound of civil liberty attained that wise men look for. John Milton, _Areopagitica_ (1644). > [@](#): > > _Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society._ It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the _well-being_ of society. Alexander Hamilton, “The Farmer Refuted,” _The Works of Alexander Hamilton_, ed. John C. Hamilton, vol. 2, p. 61 (1850) (emphasis in original). The term also appears in The Federalist Papers: > [@](#): > > From the disorders that disfigure the annals of those republics the advocates of despotism have drawn arguments, not only against the forms of republican government, but against the very principles of civil liberty. No. 9. > [@](#): > > The important distinction so well understood in America, between a Constitution established by the people and unalterable by the government, and a law established by the government and alterable by the government, seems to have been little understood and less observed in any other country. Wherever the supreme power of legislation has resided, has been supposed to reside also a full power to change the form of the government. Even in Great Britain, where the principles of political and civil liberty have been most discussed, and where we hear most of the rights of the Constitution, it is maintained that the authority of the Parliament is transcendent and uncontrollable, as well with regard to the Constitution, as the ordinary objects of legislative provision. No. 53. ---
**Author:** ![Kalashnikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/2bfe46/32.png) [@Kalashnikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalashnikov)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-exactly-are-civil-liberties/165543/8 "2003-03-31T23:02:06Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Shagnasty \* > \*\* Freedom of speech is generally considered to be a civil liberty while the right to bear arms is not. > \*\* The right to bear arms(and to self-defense) is indeed considered a civil liberty or a civil right. Except by those who oppose it, of course, or who are afraid it would scare off some of their contributors. > **[Understanding Civil Liberties](https://www.thoughtco.com/civil-liberties-4132996)** > > There may be nothing more important than understanding your civil liberties—those personal freedoms guaranteed and protected by the U.S. government—and how they are different from (and similar to) those enjoyed by citizens around the world. [http://www.cato.org/current/civil-liberties/](http://www.cato.org/current/civil-liberties/) [http://www.libertydefense.com/second.html](http://www.libertydefense.com/second.html)