Cardinal Gibbons, Bishop Potter, and Mr. Gladstone represent the
theological side--that is to say, the impracticable, the supernatural,
the unnatural. After reading their opinions, it is refreshing to read
those of Justice Bradley. It is like coming out of the tomb into the
fresh air.
Speaking of the law, whether regarded as divine or human or both,
Justice Bradley says: "I know no other law on the subject but the moral
law, which does not consist of arbitrary enactments and decrees, but
is adapted to our condition as human beings. This is so, whether it
is conceived of as the will of an all-wise creator, or as the voice of
humanity speaking from its experience, its necessities and its higher
instincts. And that law surely does not demand that the injured party
to the marriage bond should be forever tied to one who disregards
and violates every obligation that it imposes--to one with whom it is
impossible to cohabit--to one whose touch is contamination. Nor does
it demand that such injured party, if legally free, should be forever
debarred from forming other ties through which the lost hopes of
happiness for life may be restored. It is not reason, and it can not
be law--divine, or moral--that unfaithfulness, or willful and obstinate
desertion, or persistent cruelty of the stronger party, should afford no
ground for relief.......If no redress be legalized, the law itself will
be set at defiance, and greater injury to soul and body will result from
clandestine methods of relief."
Surely, this is good, wholesome, practical common sense.