obligations which a man takes on himself as a magistrate by his
official oath. Our theory of office is this: The man is sunk in the
magistrate; he is _un homme couvert_; his individual manhood is covered
up and extinguished by his official cap; he is no longer a man, but a
mere president, general, governor, representative, sheriff, juror, or
constable; he is absolved from all allegiance to God's law of the
universe when it conflicts with man's law of the land; his official
business as a magistrate supersedes his natural duty as a man. In
virtue of this theory, President Polk, and his coadjutors in Congress
and out of it, with malice aforethought and intent to rob and to kill,
did officially invade Mexico, and therein "slay, kill, and murder" some
thousands of men, as well Americans as Mexicans. This is thought right
because he did it officially. But the fact that he and they were
magistrates, doing official business, did not make the killing any the
less a wrong than if he and they had been private men, with General
Lopez and not General Taylor to head or back them. The official killing
of a man who has not alienated his right to life, is just as much a
violation of the law of God, and the natural duty of a man, as the
unofficial killing of such a person. Because you and I and some other
foolish people put a man in a high office, and get him to take an oath,
does that, all at once, invest him with a natural right to kill anybody
he sees fit; to kill an innocent Mexican? All his natural rights he had
before, and it would be difficult to ascertain where the people could
find the right to authorize him to do a wrong. A man does not escape
from the jurisdiction of natural law and the dominion of God by
enlisting in the army, or by taking the oath of the President; for
justice, the law paramount of the universe, extends over armies and
nations.
A little while ago a murderer was hanged in Boston, by the Sheriff of
Suffolk county, at the command of the Governor and Council of
Massachusetts, by the aid of certain persons called grand and petit
jurors, all of them acting in their official capacity, and doing the
official business they had sworn to do. If it be a wrong thing to hang a
man, or to take his life except in self-defence, and while in imminent
peril, then it is not any less a wrong because men do it in their
official character, in compliance with their oath. I am speaking of
absolute wrong, not merely what is wrong relatively to the man's own
judgment, for I doubt not that all those officers were entirely
conscientious in what they did, and therefore no blame rests on them.
But if a man believes it wrong to take human life deliberately, except
in the cases named, then I do not see how, with a good conscience, he
can be partaker in the death of any man, notwithstanding his official
oath.
Let me suppose a case which may happen here, and before long. A woman
flies from South Carolina to Massachusetts to escape from bondage. Mr.
Greatheart aids her in her escape, harbors and conceals her, and is
brought to trial for it. The punishment is a fine of one thousand
dollars and imprisonment for six months. I am drawn to serve as a juror,
and pass upon this offence. I may refuse to serve, and be punished for
that, leaving men with no scruples to take my place, or I may take the
juror's oath to give a verdict according to the law and the testimony.
The law is plain, let us suppose, and the testimony conclusive.
Greatheart himself confesses that he did the deed alleged, saving one
ready to perish. The judge charges, that if the jurors are satisfied of
that fact, then they must return that he is guilty. This is a nice
matter. Here are two questions. The one, put to me in my official
capacity as juror, is this: "Did Greatheart aid the woman?" The other,
put to me in my natural character as man, is this: "Will you help punish
Greatheart with fine and imprisonment for helping a woman obtain her
unalienable rights?" I am to answer both. If I have extinguished my
manhood by my juror's oath, then I shall do my official business and
find Greatheart guilty, and I shall seem to be a true man; but if I
value my manhood, I shall answer after my natural duty to love a man and
not hate him, to do him justice, not injustice, to allow him the natural
rights he has not alienated, and shall say "Not guilty." Then foolish
men, blinded by the dust of courts, may call me forsworn and a liar;
but I think human nature will justify the verdict.[14]
In cases of this kind, when justice is on one side and the court on
the other, it seems to me a conscientious man must either refuse to
serve as a juror, or else return a verdict at variance with the facts
and what courts declare to be his official business as juror; but the
eyes of some men have been so long blinded by what the court declares
is the law, and by its notion of the juror's function, that they will
help inflict such a punishment on their brother, and the judge decree
the sentence, in a case where the arrest, the verdict and the sentence
are the only wrong in which the prisoner is concerned. It seems to me it
is time this matter should be understood, and that it should be known
that no official oath can take a man out of the jurisdiction of God's
natural law of the universe.
A case may be brought before a commissioner or judge of the United
States, to determine whether Daniel is a slave, and therefore to be
surrendered up. His official business, sanctioned by his oath, enforced
by the law of the land, demands the surrender; his natural duty,
sanctioned by his conscience, enforced by absolute justice, forbids the
surrender. What shall he do? There is no serving of God and Mammon both.
He may abandon his commission and refuse to remain thus halting between
two opposites. But if he keeps his office, I see not how he can renounce
his nature and send back a fugitive slave, and do as great a wrong as to
make a free man a slave!
Suppose the Constitution had been altered, and Congress had made a law,
making it the business of the United States' commissioners to enslave
and sell at public outcry all the red-haired men in the nation, and
forbid us to aid and abet their escape, to harbor and conceal them under
the same penalties just now mentioned; do you think any commissioner
would be justified before God by his oath in kidnapping the red-haired
men, or any person in punishing such as harbored or concealed them, such
as forcibly took the victims out of the hand of officials who would work
mischief by statute? Will the color of a hair make right wrong, and
wrong right?
Suppose a man has sworn to keep the Constitution of the United States,
and the Constitution is found to be wrong in certain particulars: then
his oath is not morally binding, for before his oath, by his very
existence, he is morally bound to keep the law of God as fast as he
learns it. No oath can absolve him from his natural allegiance to God.
Yet I see not how a man can knowingly, and with a good conscience, swear
to keep what he deems wrong to keep, and will not keep, and does not
intend to keep.
It seems to me very strange that men so misunderstand the rights of
conscience and their obligations to obey their country. Not long ago, an
eminent man taunted one of his opponents, telling him he had better
adhere to the "higher law." The newspapers echoed the sneer, as if there
were no law higher than the Constitution. Latterly, the democratic
party, even more completely than the whig party, seems to have forgotten
that there is any law higher than the Constitution, any rights above
vested rights.[15]
An eminent theologian of New England, who has hitherto done good and
great service in his profession, grinding off the barb of Calvinism,
wrote a book in defence of slave-catching, on "Conscience and the
Constitution," a book which not only sins against the sense of the
righteous in being wicked, but against the worldliness of the world in
being weak,--and he puts the official business of keeping "a compact"
far before the natural duty of keeping a conscience void of offence, and
serving God. But suppose forty thieves assemble on Fire Island, and make
a compact to rob every vessel wrecked on their coast, and reduce the
survivors to bondage. Suppose I am born amongst that brotherhood of
pirates, am I morally bound to keep that compact, or to perform any
function which grows out of it? Nay, I am morally bound to violate the
compact, to keep the pirates from their plunder and their prey. Instead
of forty thieves on Fire Island, suppose twenty millions of men in the
United States make a compact to enslave every sixth man--the dark
men--am I morally bound to heed that compact, or to perform any function
which grows out of it? Nay, I am morally bound to violate the compact,
in every way that is just and wise. The very men who make such a compact
are morally discharged from it as soon as they see it is wrong. The
forty Jews who bound themselves by wicked oath to kill Paul before they
broke their fast,--were they morally bound to keep their word? Nay,
morally bound to break it.
I will tell you a portion of the story of a fugitive slave whom I have
known. I will call his name Joseph, though he was in worse than Egyptian
bondage. He was "owned" by a notorious gambler, and once ran away, but
was retaken. His master proceeded to punish him for that crime, took him
to a chamber, locked the door, and lighted a fire; he then beat the
slave severely. After that he put the branding-iron in the fire, took a
knife,--I am not telling of what took place in Algiers, but in
Alabama,--and proceeded to cut off the ears of his victim! The owner's
wife, alarmed at the shrieks of the sufferer, beat down the door with a
sledge-hammer, and prevented that catastrophe. Afterwards, two slaves of
this gambler, for stealing their master's sheep, were beaten so that
they died of the stripes. The "Minister" came to the funeral, told the
others that those were wicked slaves, who deserved their fate; that they
would never "rise" in the general resurrection, and were not fit to be
buried! Accordingly their bodies were thrown into a hole and left there.
Joseph ran away again; he came to Boston; was sheltered by a man whose
charity never fails; he has been in my house, and often has worshipped
here with us. Shall I take that man and deliver him up?--do it "with
alacrity?" Shall I suffer that gambler to carry his prey from this city?
Will you allow it--though all the laws and constitutions of men give the
commandment? God do so unto us if we suffer it.[16]
This we need continually to remember: that nothing in the world without
is so sacred as the Eternal Law of God; of the world within nothing is
more venerable than our own conscience, the permanent, everlasting
oracle of God. The Urim and Thummim were but Jewish or Egyptian toys on
the breast-plate of the Hebrew priest; the Delphic oracle was only a
subtle cheat, but this is the true Shekinah and presence of God in your
heart: as this
----"pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in heaven expect your meed."
If I am consciously and continually false to this, it is of no avail
that I seem loyal to all besides; I make the light that is in me
darkness, and how great is that darkness! The centre of my manhood is
gone, and I am rotten at my heart. Men may respect me, honor me, but I
am not respectable, I am a base, dishonorable man, and like a tree,
broad-branched, and leafed with green, but all its heart gnawed out by
secret worms, at some slight touch one day, my rotten trunk will fall
with horrid squelch, bringing my leafy honors to dishonored dust, and
men will wonder that bark could hide such rottenness and ruin.
But if I am true to this Legate of God, holding his court within my
soul, then my power to discover the just and right will enlarge
continually; the axis of my little life will coincide with the life of
the infinite God, His Conscience and my own be one. Then my character
and my work will lie in the plane of his Almighty action; no other will
in me, His infinite wisdom, justice, holiness, and love, will flow into
me, a ceaseless tide, filling with life divine and new the little
creeklets of my humble soul. I shall be one with God, feel His delight
in me and mine in Him, and all my mortal life run o'er with life divine
and bless mankind. Let men abhor me, yea, scourge and crucify, angels
are at hand; yes, the Father is with me!
* * * * *
How we mistake. Men think if they can but get wickedness dignified into
a statute, enrolled in the capitol, signed by the magistrates, and
popular with the people, that all is secure. Then they rejoice, and at
their "Thanksgiving dinner," say with the short-lived tyrant in the
play, after he had slain the rightful heirs of England's throne, and set
his murderous hoof on justice at every step to power,--
"Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer" ...
and think that Sin sits fast and rides secure.[17] But no statute of men
is ever fixed on man till it be first the absolute, the right, the law
of God. All else lasts but its day, forever this, forever still the
same. By "previous questions," men may stop debate, vote down minorities
with hideous grin, but the still small voice of Justice will whisper in
the human heart, will be trumpet-tongued in history to teach you that
you cannot vote down God.
In your private character, if you would build securely, you must build
on the natural law of God, inherent in your nature and in his; if the
nation would build securely, it must build so. Out of their caprice,
their selfishness, and their sin, may men make statutes, to last for a
day, built up with joyous huzzas, and the chiming of a hundred guns, to
come down with the curses of the multitude, and smitten by the thunder
of God; but to build secure, you must build on the Justice of the
Almighty. The beatitudes of Jesus will outlast the codes of all the
tyrants of the old world and the new. So I have seen gamblers hurry and
huddle up their booths at a country muster, on the unsmoothed surface of
a stubble-field, foundation good enough for such a structure, not a post
plumb, to endure a single day of riot, drunkenness, and sin; but to
build a pyramid which shall outlast empires, men lay bare the bosom of
the primeval rock, and out of primeval rock they build thereon their
well-joined work, outlasting Syria, Greece, Carthage, Rome, venerable to
Time, and underneath its steadfast foot the earthquakes pass all
harmlessly away.
All things conspire to overturn a wrong. Every advance of man is hostile
to it. Reason is hostile; religion is its deadly foe; the new-born
generation will assail it, and it must fall. Of old it was written,
"Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not prosper," and the
world's wide walls, from the remotest bounds of peopled space, laugh
out their loud and long "Amen!" Let Iniquity be never so old and
respectable, get all the most eminent votes, have the newspapers on her
side, guns fired at her success, it all avails nothing; for this is
God's world, not a devil's, and His eternal word has gone forth that
Right alone shall last forever and forever.
* * * * *
Oh, young man, now in the period of the passions, reverence your
Conscience. Defer that to no appetite, to no passion, to no foolish
compliance with other men's ways, to no ungodly custom, even if become a
law. Ask always "Is it right for me?" Be brave and self-denying for
conscience' sake. Fear not to differ from men; keeping your modesty,
keep your integrity also. Let not even your discretion consume your
valor. Fear not to be scrupulously upright and pure; be afraid neither
of men's hate, nor even of their laugh and haughty scorn, but shudder at
the thought of tampering with your sense of right, even in the smallest
matters. The Flesh will come up with deceitful counsels--the Spirit
teaching the commandments of God; give both their due. Be not the
senses' slave, but the soul's free man.
Oh brother man, who once wert young, in the period of ambition, or
beyond it, if such a time there be, can you trust the selfishness, the
caprice, the passions, and the sin of men, before your own conscience,
renounce the law of God for the customs of men? When your volcanic
mountain has been capped with snow, Interest, subtler than all the
passions of the flesh, comes up to give her insidious counsel. "On our
side," says she, "is the applause of men; feasting is with us; the wise
and prudent are here also, yea, the ancient and honorable, men much
older than thy father; and with gray hairs mottling thy once auburn
head, wilt thou forsake official business, its solid praise, and certain
gain, for the phantom of natural duty, renounce allegiance to warm human
lies for the cold truth of God remote and far!" Say, "Get thee behind
me," to such counsellors; "I will not stain my age by listening to your
subterranean talk."
Oh, brother man, or old or young, how will you dare come up before your
God and say: "Oh Lord, I heard, I heard thy voice in my soul, at times
still and small, at times a trumpet talking with me of the Right, the
Eternal Right, but I preferred the low counsels of the flesh; the
commands of Interest I kept; I feared the rich man's decorous rage; I
trembled at the public roar, and I scorned alike my native duty and thy
natural law. Lo, here is the talent Thou gavest me, my sense of right. I
have used each other sense, this only have I hid; it is eaten up with
rust, but thus I bring it back to Thee. Take what is thine!" Who would
dare thus to sin against infinite Justice? Who would wish to sin against
it when it is also infinite Love, and the law of right is but the
highway on which the Almightiness of the Father comes out to meet his
prodigal, a great way off, penitent and returning home, or unrepentant
still, refusing to be comforted, and famishing on draff and husks, while
there is bread of heavenly life enough and yet to spare, comes out to
meet us, to take us home, and to bless us forever and forever?
FOOTNOTES:
[11] The terms _laws of the human spirit_, _spiritual laws_, &c., are
sometimes used to denote exclusively those laws which man _must_ keep,
not merely what he _ought_ to keep, laws in relation to which man has no
more freedom than a mass of marble. The words are used above in a
different sense.
[12]
Why dost thou, Tyrant, boast abroad thy wicked works to praise?
Dost thou not know there is a God, whose mercies last alwaies?
* * * *
On mischiefe why sett'st thou thy minde, and wilt not walke upright?
Thou hast more lust false tales to find, than bring the truth to light.
Thou dost delight in fraud and guile, in mischiefe, bloud and wrong.
Thy lips have learned the flattering stile, oh false deceitful tongue.
Therefore shall God for aye confound, and pluck thee from thy place;
Thy seed root out from off the ground, and so shall thee deface.
The just, when they behold thy fall, with feare shall praise the Lord;
And in reproach of thee withall, crie out with one accord:--
"Behold the man that woulde not take the Lord for his defence;
But of his goods his God did make, and trust his corrupt sense.
But I, as olive, fresh and green, shall spring and spread abroad;
For why? my trust all times hath been, upon the living God!
"For this therefore will I give praise to Thee with heart and voyce;
I will set forth Thy name alwayes, wherein Thy saints rejoyce."
_Psalm lii. in Sternhold and Hopkins._
[13] It has been said that the fugitive slave law cannot be executed in
Boston. Let us not be deceived. Who would have thought a year ago, that
the Senator of Boston would make such a speech as that of last March,
that so many of the leading citizens of Boston would write such a letter
of approval, that such a bill could pass Congress, and a man be found in
this city (Mr. Samuel A. Eliot) to vote for it and get no rebuke from
the people! Yet a single man should not endure the shame alone, which
belongs in general to the leading men of the city. The member for Boston
faithfully represented the public opinion of his most eminent
constituents, lay and clerical. Here is an account of what took place in
New York since the delivery of the sermon.
[From the New York Tribune.]
"SLAVE CATCHING IN NEW YORK--FIRST CASE UNDER THE LAW.
"The following case, which occurred yesterday, is one of peculiar
interest, from the fact of its being the first case under the new
Fugitive Slave Law. It will be noticed that there is very little of the
'law's delay' here; the proceedings were as summary as an Arkansas court
audience could desire.
"U. S. COMMISSIONER'S OFFICE--Before Commissioner
Gardiner.--_Examination as to James Hamlet, charged to be a fugitive
slave, the property of Mary Brown, of Baltimore._--No person was present
as counsel for accused, and only one colored man. He is a light mulatto.
The marshal said Mr. Wood had been there. The commissioner said they
would go on, and if counsel came in, he would read proceedings.
"_Thomas J. Clare_ (a man with dark eyes and hair), sworn.--Am thirty
years of age; clerk for Merchant's Shot Manufacturing Company in
Baltimore; know James Hamlet; he is slave of Mary Brown, a mother-in-law
of mine, residing in Baltimore; have known Hamlet about twenty years; he
left my mother-in-law about two years ago this season, by absenting
himself from the premises, the dwelling where he resided in Baltimore;
she is entitled to his services; he is a slave for life; she never
parted with him voluntarily; she came into possession of him by will
from John G. Brown, her deceased husband; the written paper shown is an
extract from his will; she held him under that from the time she
inherited him till he escaped, as I have testified; this is the man
(pointing to Hamlet, a light mulatto man, about twenty-four or
twenty-five years of age, looking exceedingly pensive).
"_Gustavus Brown_, sworn.--Am twenty-five years of age; reside in New
York; clerk with A. M. Fenday, 25 Front street; resided before coming
here in Baltimore; I know James Hamlet; I have known him since a boy; he
is a slave to my mother; he is a slave for life; my mother inherited him
under the will of my father; he left her service by running away, I
suppose; absenting himself from the house in the city of Baltimore,
about two years since; I have seen him several times, within the last
six months, in the city; first time I saw him was in April last; my
mother is still entitled to possession of him; she never has parted with
him; the man sitting here (Hamlet) is the man.
"Mr. Asa Child, Counsellor at Law, here came into the room, and took his
seat; he said he had been sent to this morning, through another, by a
gentleman with whom Hamlet had lived in this city (Mr. S. N. Wood), but
he had no directions in the matter; he merely came to see that the law
is properly administered, and supposed it would be without him.
"Mr. Child was then shown the law, the power of attorney to Mr. Clare,
the affidavit of Mr. Clare on which Hamlet was arrested--and the
testimony thus far.
"_Mr. Clare_, cross-examined by Mr. Child.--I married Mrs. Brown's
daughter about seventeen years ago; Hamlet has always lived with us in
the family: I am in her family now, and was at the time he went away;
think he is about twenty-eight years of age (he looks much younger than
that--his features are very even, as those of a white person of the
kind); he occasionally worked at the shot tower where I worked; he was
hired there as a laborer, and Mrs. Brown got the benefit of him--that
is, when I had no other use for him; he had formerly been employed as a
drayman; after I married into the family some year or two, we lived
together, I furnishing the house; such wages as I got for the man it was
returned to Mrs. Brown, to be used as she saw fit; I was her agent to
get employment for him as I could; I had him in various occupations; I
have a power of attorney; I have no further interest in him than he is
her property, and we wish to get him back to Maryland again, where he
left.
"_Mr. Brown_, cross-examined.--Left home 27th March last. Was home when
Hamlet went away. At the time he was engaged at the shot tower business.
"Mr. Child said he had no further questions to ask. He supposed the
rules of the law had been complied with.
"Mr. Gardiner, the commissioner, then said, I will deliver the fugitive
over to the marshal, to be delivered over to the claimant.
"Mr. Child suggested if that was the law. The commissioner then said he
would hand him, as the law said, to the claimant, and if there should be
any danger of rescue, he would deliver him to the United States Marshal.
"The United States Marshal said he had performed his duty in bringing
him in.
"Mr. Clare said he would demand such aid from the United States Marshal,
as would secure the delivery of the man to his owner in Baltimore.
"Mr. Child suggested that it must be an affidavit that he apprehends a
rescue. Mr. Clare said that he did so apprehend.
"Mr. Talmadge, the marshal, said he would have to perform his duty, if
called upon.
"Mr. Child replied he supposed he would, but there were doubts as to the
form.
"The necessary papers were made out by the commissioner, Mr. Clare
swearing he feared a rescue, and Hamlet was delivered to him, thence to
the United States Marshal, and probably was conveyed with all possible
despatch to Baltimore, a coach being in waiting at the door; and he was
taken off in irons, an officer accompanying the party."
Here is the charge of Judge McLean in a similar case.