Part 20

As the individuals, all, the majority, or some controlling men, come to 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."