social self-consciousness, they express these natural laws, or their
notion thereof, in certain rules of social conduct. They say, "This
shall all men do, for it is right; that shall no man do, for it is
wrong." The nation makes its social resolutions, social statutes, in its
act of prayer; for legislation is to the State what prayer is to the
man,--often an act of penitence, of sorrow, of fear, and yet of faith,
hope, and love. When it rises higher, it revises and makes better rules
of conduct: they derive all their objective and real value from their
conformity with the law of God; all their subjective and apparent value,
from their conformity with the nation's notion thereof. The only thing
which makes it right, and a social moral duty for society, or any of its
members, to keep these social statutes, is that they are right, or
thought so. In the progress of society, its rules of conduct get revised
a good many times: now it is done by gradual, peaceful development; now
by sudden and stormy revolutions, when society is penitent for the sin
of the past, and in great anxiety and concern of mind through fear of
the future. These social statutes are only provisional, to help men
climb up to the purpose of social life. They are all amenable
subjectively to the notion of right; objectively to right itself,--to
the conscience of the individuals and to God.
Then society appoints officers whose special conventional function is to
see to the execution of these social rules of conduct. They are legally
amenable to the rules of conduct they are to carry out; socially
amenable to the community that appoints them; individually amenable to
their own conscience and to God.
To sum up all this in one formula: Officers are conventionally amenable
to society; society, with its officers and its rules of conduct,
amenable to the purpose of society; the design of individual life, to
the individuals that compose it; individuals, with their rules of
conduct, amenable each to his own conscience; and all to the law of the
universe, to the Eternal Right, which represents the conscience of God.
So far as society is right, government right, statutes right, officers
right, all may justly demand obedience from each: for though society,
government, statutes, and officers are mere human affairs, as much so as
farms, fences, top-dressing, and reapers, and are as provisional as
they; yet Right is divine, is of God, not merely provisional and for
to-day, but absolute and for eternity. So, then, the moral duty to
respect the government, to keep the statutes, to obey the officers, is
all resolvable into the moral duty of respecting the integrity of my own
nature, of keeping the eternal law of nature, of obeying God. If
government, statutes, officers, command me to do right, I must do it,
not because commanded, but because it is right; if they command me to
do wrong, I must refuse, not because commanded, but because it is wrong.
There is a constitution of the universe: to keep that is to preserve the
union between man and man, between man and God. To do right is to keep
this constitution: that is loyalty to God. To keep my notion of it is
loyalty to my own soul. To be false to my notion thereof is treason
against my own nature; to be false to that constitution is treason
against God. The constitution of the universe is not amenable to men:
that is the law of God, the higher law, the constant mode of action of
the infinite Father of all. In that He lives and moves, and has His
being.
* * * * *
It is now easy to see what are the Safeguards of society, the things
which promote the end and aim of society,--the development of the body
and spirit of all men after their law,--and thus help attain the purpose
of individual life. I will mention three of these safeguards, in the
order of their importance.
First of all, is Righteousness in the People: a religious determination
to keep the law of God at all hazards; a sacred and inflexible reverence
for right; a determined habit of fidelity each to his own conscience.
This, of course, implies a hatred of wrong; a religious and determined
habit of disobeying and resisting every thing which contradicts the law
of God, of disobeying what is false to this and our conscience. There is
no safeguard for society without this. It is to man what
impenetrability, with the other primary qualities, is to matter. All
must begin with the integral atoms, with the individual mind and
conscience; all be tried by that test, personal integrity, at last. What
is false to myself I must never do,--at no time, for no consideration,
in nowise. This is the doctrine of the higher law; the doctrine of
allegiance to God; a doctrine which appears in every form of religion
ever taught in the world; a doctrine admitted by the greatest writers on
the foundation of human law, from Cicero to Lord Brougham. Even Bentham
comes back to this. I know it is now-a-days taught in the United States,
that, if any statute is made after the customary legal form, it is
morally binding on all men, no matter what the statute may be; that a
command to kidnap a black man and sell him into slavery, is as much
morally binding as a command for a man to protect his own wife and
child. A people that will practically submit to such a doctrine is not
worthy of liberty, and deserves nothing but law, oppressive law,
tyrannical law; and will soon get what it deserves. If a people has this
notion, that they are morally bound to obey any statute legally made,
though it conflict with public morals, with private conscience, and with
the law of God, then there is no hope of such a people; and the sooner
a tyrant whips them into their shameful grave, the better for the world.
Trust me, to such a people the tyrant will soon come. Where the carcass
is thither will the vultures be gathered together. Let no man put
asunder the carrion and the crow. So much for the first and
indispensable safeguard.
* * * * *
The next is derivative therefrom, Righteousness in the Establishments of
the People. Under this name I include three things, namely,
institutions, constitutions, and statutes. Institutions are certain
modes of operation, certain social, ecclesiastical, or political
contrivances for doing certain things. Thus an agricultural club is a
social institution to help farming; a private school is a social
institution for educating its pupils; a church is an ecclesiastical
institution for the promotion of religion; an aristocracy is a political
institution for governing all the people by means of a few, and for the
sake of a few; a congress of senators and representatives is a
legislative institution for making statutes; a jury of twelve men is a
judicial institution to help execute the statutes; universal suffrage is
a democratic institution for ruling the State.
Constitutions are fundamental rules of conduct for the nation, made by
the highest human authority in the land, and only changeable thereby,
determining what institutions shall be allowed, how administered, by
whom and in what manner statutes shall be made.
Statutes are particular rules of conduct to regulate the action of man
with man, of individuals with the State, and of the State with
individuals.
Statutes are amenable to the constitutions; the constitutions to the
institutions; they to the people; all subjectively to the conscience of
the individual, and objectively to the conscience of God.
Establishments are the machinery which a people contrives wherewith to
carry out its ideas of the right or the expedient. In the present state
of mankind, they are indispensable to accomplish the purpose of
individual life. There are indeed a few men who for their good conduct,
after they are mature, require no human laws whatever. They regulate
themselves by their idea of right, by their love of truth, of justice,
of man and God. They see the law of God so clear that they need no
prohibitive statutes to restrain them from wrong. They will not lie nor
steal, though no statutes forbid, and all other men both lie and steal;
not if the statutes command falsehood and theft. These men are saints.
The wealth of Athens could not make Aristides unjust. Were all men like
Jesus of Nazareth, statutes forbidding wrong would be as needless as
sails to a shark, a balloon to a swallow, or a railroad to the lightning
of heaven. This is always a small class of men, but one that continually
increases. We all look to the time when this will include all men. No
man expects to find law books and courts in the kingdom of heaven.
Then there is a class, who need these statutes as a well-known rule of
conduct to encourage them to do right, by the assurance that all other
men will likewise be made to do so, even if not willing. They see the
law of God less clear and strong, and need human helps to keep it. This
class comprises the majority of mankind. The court-house helps them,
though they never use it; the jail helps them, though never in it. These
are common men. They are very sober in Connecticut; not very sober in
California.
Then there is a third class who will do wrong, unless they are kept from
it by punishment or the fear thereof. They do not see the law of God, or
will not keep it if they do. The court-house helps them; so does the
jail, keeping them from actual crime while there, deterring while out of
it. Take away the outward restraints, their seeming virtue falls to
pieces like a barrel without its hoops. These are knaves. I think this
class of men will continually diminish with the advance of mankind; that
the saints will grow common, and the knaves get scarce. Good
establishments promote this end; those of New England, especially the
schools, help forward this good work, to convert the knaves to common
men, to transfigure the common men to saints. Bad establishments, like
many in Austria, Ireland, and South Carolina, produce the opposite
effect: they hinder the development of what is high and noble in man,
and call out what is mean and low; for human laws are often instruments
to debauch a nation.
If a nation desires to keep the law of God, good establishments will
help the work; if it have none such, it must make them before it can be
at peace. They are as needful as coats and gowns for the body. Sometimes
the consciousness of the people is far in advance of its establishments,
and there must be a revolution to restore the equilibrium. It is so at
Rome, in Austria and Prussia. All these countries are on the brink of
revolution, and are only kept down by the bayonet. It was so here
seventy-five years ago, and our fathers went through fire and blood to
get the establishments they desired. They took of the righteousness in
the people, and made therefrom institutions, constitutions, and
statutes. So much for the second and derivative safeguard.
* * * * *
The third is Righteousness in the Public Officers, good men to
administer the establishments, manage the institutions, expound and
enforce the constitutions and execute the statutes, and so represent the
righteousness of the people. In the hands of such men as see the purpose
of social and individual life, and feel their duty to keep the integrity
of their conscience and obey the law of God, even bad establishments
are made to work well, and serve the purpose of human life; because the
man puts out the evil of the institution, constitution, or statute, and
puts his own righteousness in its place. There was once a judge in New
England who sometimes had to administer bad laws. In these cases, he
told the jury, "Such is the law, common or enacted; such are the
precedents; such the opinions of Judge This and Judge That; but justice
demands another thing. I am bound by my oath as judge to expound to you
the law as it is; you are bound by oath as jurors to do justice under
it; that is your official business here to-day." Such a man works well
with poor tools; with good ones he would work much better. By the action
of such men, aided by public opinion which they now follow and now
direct, without any change of legislation, there is a continual progress
of justice in the establishments of a nation. Bad statutes are dropped
or corrected, constitutions silently ameliorated, all institutions made
better. Thus wicked laws become obsolete. There is a law in England
compelling all men to attend church. Nobody enforces it.
Put a bad man to administer the establishments, one who does not aim at
the purpose of society, nor feel bound to keep the higher law of God,
the best institutions, constitutions, statutes, become ineffectual,
because the man puts out the good thereof, and puts in his own evil.
The best establishments will be perverted to the worst of purposes. Rome
had all the machinery of a commonwealth; with Caesar at the head it
became a despotism. In 1798, France had the establishments of a
republic; with Napoleon for first consul, you know what it became: it
soon was made an empire, and the Constitution was trodden under foot. In
1851, France has the institutions of a democracy; with Louis Napoleon as
chief, you see what is the worth of the provisions for public justice.
What was the Constitution of England good for under the thumb of Charles
I. and James II.? What was the value of the common law, of the trial by
jury, of Magna Charta, "such a fellow as will have no sovereign," with a
George Jeffries for Judge, a James II. for king, and such juries as
corrupt sheriffs brought together? They were only a mockery. What were
the charters of New England against a wicked king and a corrupt cabinet?
Connecticut went out of the court and into the Charter Oak for
self-preservation. What were all the institutions of Christianity when
Alexander VI. dishonored the seat even of the Pope?
Put a saint, who feels his duty to keep the law of God, in office, even
bad rules will work well. But put a man who recognizes no law of God,
not into a jail, but in a great office; give him courts and courtiers,
fleets and armies, nay, only newspapers and "union committees" to serve
him, you see what will be done. The resolute determination of the
people to obey the law of God, the righteousness of their
establishments, will be of small avail, frustrated by the wickedness of
the men in power. The English Parliament once sent a fleet to aid the
Huguenots at Rochelle. King Charles I. gave the admiral secret orders to
surrender his ships to the enemy he was sent to oppose! The purpose of
all human life may be as foully betrayed by wicked men in a high place.
In a monarchy, the king is answerable for it with his neck; in a
republic there is the same danger; but, where all seems to proceed from
the people, it may be more difficult to do justice to a wicked officer.
So much for the third safeguard, also derivative from the first.
To make a good house, you want good materials,--solid stone, sound
bricks, sound timber; a good plan, and also good builders. So, as
safeguards of society, to achieve its purpose, you want good
material,--a righteous people who will be faithful to their own
conscience, and obey God and reverence the law of nature; a good
plan,--righteous establishments, institutions, constitutions, statutes
conformable to the laws of God; and you want good builders,--righteous
officers to represent the eternal justice of the Father. You want this
threefold righteousness.
* * * * *
How are we provided with these three safeguards just now? Have we this
Righteousness in the People?--which is the first thing. Perhaps there is
no nation with a higher reverence for justice, and more desire to keep
the law of God; at least we have been told so, often enough. I think the
nation never had more of it than now; never so much. But here are whole
classes of men who practically seem to have no reverence for God's law;
who declare there is no such thing; whose conduct is most shamefully
unrighteous in all political matters. They seek to make us believe there
is no law above the caprice of man. Of such I will speak by and by.
It is plain there is not righteousness enough in the people to hinder us
from doing what we know is contrary to the law of God. Thus, we keep one
sixth part of the people in a state of slavery. This we do in violation
of our own axiom, declared to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, endowed by their Creator with the unalienable right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have here three millions of
slaves: if things go on as now, there will be twelve millions before the
century ends. We need not say we cannot help it. Slavery in America is
as much our work as democracy, as free schools, as the Protestant form
of religion. At the Declaration, we might have made the slaves free; at
the time of the Confederation; at the formation of the Constitution. But
no! there was not righteousness enough in the people to resist the
temptation of eating the bread which others earn. American slavery has
always been completely in the power of the American people. We may
abolish it any time we will. We might have restricted it to the old
States, which had it before, and so have kept it out of Kentucky,
Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and all that mighty
realm west of the great river. No! we took pains to extend it there. We
fought with Mexico to carry slavery into the "Halls of the Montezumas,"
whence a half-barbarous people drove it away. We long to seize on Cuba,
and yet other lands, to plant there our "American institution." We are
indignant when Austria unjustly seizes an American in Hungary, and hales
him to prison; but have nothing to say when slave States systematically
confine the colored freemen of the North, or when Georgia offers a large
reward for the head of a citizen of Boston. We talk of the "pauper labor
of Europe." It is pauper labor, very much of it. I burn with indignation
at the men who keep it so. But it is not slave labor. Paupers spin
cotton at Manchester, and at Glasgow, say the whigs. Who raises cotton
at South Carolina and Mississippi? The spoil of the slave is in our
houses. We are a republic, but the only nation of the Christian world
whose fields are tilled by chattel slaves. To such a degree has
covetousness blinded the eyes of the whole nation. In saying all this,
I will not say that we are less righteous than other nations. No other
people has had the same temptation. It has been too great for America.
Slavery is loved as well in Boston as in New Orleans. The love of
liberty is strong with us; but it is liberty for ourselves we love, not
for our brother man whom we can oppress and enthrall. This vice is not
confined to the South. I look on some of the clergymen of the North as
only chaplains of the slave-driver.
Look at the next safeguard of society. Setting aside the institution of
slavery, and the statutes relating thereto, I think we have the most
righteous Establishments in the world. By no means perfect, they produce
the greatest variety of action in the individuals, the greatest unity of
action in society, and afford an opportunity to achieve the purpose of
social and individual life. Here is the great institution of democracy,
the government of all, by all, and for all, resting on the American
idea, that all men have natural rights which only the possessor can
alienate; that all are equal in their rights; that it is the business of
government to preserve them all for each man. Under this great
institution of a free State, there naturally come the church, the
school, the press,--all free. In politics, and all depending thereon, we
are coming to recognize this principle, that restraint is only to be
exercised for the good of all, the restrainer and the restrained.
Let me single out two excellent institutions, not wholly American,--The
contrivance for making laws, and that for executing them. To make laws,
the people choose the best men they can find and confide in, and set
them to this work. They aim to take all the good of past times, of the
present times, and add to it their private contribution of justice. Each
State Legislature is a little political academy for the advancement of
jural science and art. They get the wisest and most humane men to aid
them. Then after much elaboration the law is made. If it works well in
one State it is soon tried in others; if not, it is repealed and ceases
to be. The experience of mankind has discovered no better way than this
of popular legislation, for organizing the ideal justice of the people
into permanent forms. If there is a man of moral and political genius in
the community, he can easily be made available to the public. The
experiment of popular legislation has been eminently successful in
America.
Then, still further, we have Officers chosen by the people for a limited
time, to enforce the laws when made,--the Executive; others to expound
them,--the Judiciary. It is the official business of certain officers to
punish the man who violates the laws. In due and prescribed form, they
arrest the man charged with the offence. Now, two things are desirable:
one to protect society, in all its members, from injury by any one
acting against its just laws; the other is, to protect the man
complained of from being hurt by government when there is no law
against him, or when he has not done the deed alleged, or from an unjust
punishment, even if it be legal. In despotic countries, little is
thought of this latter; and it goes hard with a man whom the government
complains of, even if there is no positive statute against the crime
charged on him, or when he is innocent of the deed alleged. Nothing can
screen him from the lawful punishment, though that be never so unjust.
The statute and its administration are a rule without mercy. But in
liberal governments a contrivance has been devised to accomplish both
these purposes,--the just desire of society to execute its laws; the
just desire of the individual to have justice done. That is the trial by
a jury of twelve men, not officers of the government, but men taken for
this purpose alone from the bosom of the community, with all their human
sympathies and sense of responsibility to God about them. The jury are
to answer in one word "Guilty" or "Not guilty." But it is plain they are
to determine three things: first, Did the prisoner do the deed alleged,
and as alleged? next, if so, Is there a legal and constitutional statute
forbidding it, and decreeing punishment therefor? and then, if so, Shall
the prisoner for that deed suffer the punishment denounced by that
law?[34]
Human statutes partake of human imperfections. See the checks against
sudden, passionate, or unjust legislation. We choose legislators, and
divide them into two branches, a Senate and a House of Representatives,
each to aid and check the other. If a bill pass one house, and seem
unjust to the other, it is set aside. If both approve of it, a third
person has still a qualified negative; and, if it seems unjust to him,
he sets it aside. If it passes this threefold ordeal, it becomes a
statute of the land. See the checks in the execution of the laws which
relate to offences. Before they can be brought against any man, in any
matter beyond a trifle, a jury of his peers indict him for the offence.
Then, before he can be punished, twelve men of his peers must say with
one accord, "You shall inflict the penalties of the statute upon this
man."