In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

344 Citizen Prieto: Gentlemen, I am going to follow, with the thoroughness that is possible for me, the young orator who has just spoken, making use of his excellent method and with the confidence that is inspired by such a gentlemanly and loyal adversary as he to whom it has fallen to me to oppose. Let us read the constitutional article. It states: Every man is free to take on the industry or labor that suits him, being useful and honest, and in order to avail himself its profits. Neither the one nor the other can be prevented, except by judicial ruling when he attacks the rights of a third, or by governmental resolution pronounced in the terms that this law designates when he offends members of society. To explain this article, the regulation we debate says: “The fact of not working is not a crime,” and the present question is limited to this; that is, to discover whether or not vagrancy is a crime. A crime is the breaking of the law, and this principle is so absolute that there is no crime whatsoever prior to the designation of the law; the crime arises from the law, the law creates it, so that, to begin by judging vagrancyas if it were made by declaration of the law is a flaw in logic that perverts the matter. We are now are going to make law independently of all tradition and all legislation; nothing of that exists for us. Preliminary to that law is this question: Should we consider vagrancy a crime? 5 On Freedom to Work. Report on the Speech before Congress on November 5, 1874 Original title: “Sobre el proyecto de libertad de trabajo” [pronunciado en el Séptimo Congreso Constitucional, durante la sesión del 5 de noviembre de 1874]. Source: Diario de los debates, Séptimo Congreso Constitucional, vol. 3 (Mexico: Imprenta F. Díaz de León y Santiago White, 1874). on freedom to work : 345 Which article of the Constitution imposes the obligation or duty to work? Which? None. So, not working, the simple fact of not working, is not a crime. The article, in the last analysis, respects the right of choice of work. It respects the free will of man, without which all liberty is chimerical and conscience becomes inconceivable. But the article supposes the will to work; if he does not have that will, his right is respected also, because without those two phases of the will, the existence of liberty is not possible . Why, then, the anathemas for the exercise of a perfect right? Can it not be seen that the ideas of free choice and obligatory work are incompatible ? The right in this case is the consecration of full, absolute liberty, as must be in order that it exist complete, without conditions; and that liberty disappears the instant work is imposed by force. What would we say if we had the liberty to speak but not to keep quiet, to move an arm but not to hold it in repose, to open the eyes but not to close them? Liberty is the suppression of all bonds that are not those that guarantee the liberty of others. Obligation is a link that tightens .To confuse the one with the other is to rush headlong into absurdity. With the libertyof man consecrated, with man free to choose to work or not, if he does not opt for the first of these, why consider him criminal ? How to tell him, first, you are free to choose the road you like, but if you do not choose some road I will punish you? Who would be satisfied when they say to him, you can do what you think, and then awaken him with blows, because sub pectore the one who made the proposal kept secret the intention of not letting him sleep? To enlarge on these ideas as the regulation does is not to confuse them or pervert them or corrupt them; it is to perfect them. In the critical sense, in the literary, the explanation will be redundant but not incongruous . Being explained, the article is strengthened, it is made more practical. At the same time as it breaks with tradition, it recognizes liberty , giving to each person responsibility for his actions. Not to explain it is to leave its development exposed to the contingencies of tradition; it would inevitably come through persecution of leisure to obligatory work, to the organization of labor...

Share