Volume IV Part 17 (1/2)

says our oldest and ablest statesman, ”is the vital and animating _spirit_ of the National Government.”

Surely IF it be true that a man may justifiably stand connected with a government in which he sees some slight evils--still it is also true, even then, that governments _may_ sin so atrociously, so enormously, may make evil so much the _purpose_ of their being, as to render it the duty of honest men to wash their hands of them.

I may give money to a friend whose life has some things in it which I do not fully approve--but when his nights are pa.s.sed in the brothel, and his days in drunkenness, when he uses his talents to seduce others, and his gold to pave their road to ruin, surely the case is changed.

I may perhaps sacrifice health by staying awhile in a room rather overheated, but I shall certainly see it to be my duty to rush out, when the whole house is in full blaze.

OBJECTION VIII.

G.o.d intended that society and governments should exist. We therefore are bound to support them. He has conferred upon us the rights of citizens.h.i.+p in this country, and we cannot escape from the responsibility of exercising them. G.o.d made us _citizens_.

ANSWER. This reminds me of an old story I have heard. When the Legislature were asked to set off a portion of the town of Dorchester and call it South Boston, the old minister of the town is said to have objected, saying, ”G.o.d made it Dorchester, and Dorchester it ought to be.”

G.o.d made us social beings, it is true, but _society_ is not necessarily the Const.i.tution of the United States! Because G.o.d meant some form of government should exist, does not at all prove that we are justified in supporting a wicked one. Man confers the rights and regulates the duties of citizens.h.i.+p. G.o.d never made a _citizen_, and no one will escape, as a man, from the sins he commits as a citizen.

This is the first time that it has ever been held an excuse for sin that we ”went with the mult.i.tude to do evil!”

Certainly we can be under no _such_ responsibility to become and remain _citizens_, as will excuse us from the sinful acts which as such citizens we are called to commit. Does G.o.d make obligatory on his creature the support of inst.i.tutions which require him to do acts in themselves wrong? To suppose so, were to confound all the rules of G.o.d's moral kingdom.

President Wayland has lately been ill.u.s.trating, and giving his testimony to the principle, that a combination of men cannot change the moral character of an act, which is in itself sinful--that the law of morals is binding the same on communities, corporations, &c.

as on individuals.

After describing slavery, and saying that to hold a man in such a state is wrong--he goes on:

”I will offer but one more supposition. Suppose that any number, for instance one half of the families in our neighborhood, should by law enact that the weaker half should be slaves, that we would exercise over them the authority of masters, prohibit by law their instruction, and concert among ourselves means for holding them permanently in their present situation. In what manner would this alter the moral aspect of the case?”

A law in this case is merely a determination of one party, in which all unite, to hold the other party in bondage; and a compact by which the whole party bind themselves to a.s.sist every individual of themselves to subdue all resistance from the other party, and guaranteeing to each other that exercise of this power over the weaker party which they now possess.

Now I cannot see that this in any respect changes the nature of the parties. They remain, as before, human beings, possessing the same intellectual and moral nature, holding the same relations to each other and to G.o.d, and still under the same unchangeable law, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. By the act of holding a man in bondage, this law is violated. Wrong is done, moral evil is committed. In the former case it was done by the individual; now it is done by the individual and the society. Before, the individual was responsible only for his own wrong; now he is responsible both for his own, and also, as a member of the society, for all the wrong which the society binds itself to uphold and render perpetual.

The scriptures frequently allude to the fact, that wrong done by law, that is by society, is amenable to the same retribution as wrong done by the individual. Thus, Psalm 94:20-23. 'Shall the throne of iniquity have fellows.h.i.+p with them which frame mischief by a law, and gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood? But the Lord is my defence; and my G.o.d is the rock of my refuge. And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the Lord our G.o.d shall cut them off' So also Isaiah 10:1-4. 'Wo unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write grievousness which they have prescribed.' &c. Besides, persecution for the sake of religious opinion is always perpetrated by law; but this in no manner affects its moral character.

There is, however, one point of difference, which arises from the fact that this wrong has been established by law. It becomes a social wrong. The individual, or those who preceded him, may have surrendered their individual right over it to the society. In this case it may happen that the individual cannot act as he might act, if the law had not been made. In this case the evil can only be eradicated by changing the opinions of the society, and inducing them to abolish the law. It will however be apparent that this, as I said before, does not change the relation of the parties either to each other or to G.o.d. The wrong exists as before. The individual act is wrong. The law which protects it is wrong. The whole society, in putting the law into execution, is wrong. Before only the individual, now, the whole society, becomes the wrong doer, and for that wrong, both the individuals and the society are held responsible in the sight of G.o.d.”

If such ”individual act is wrong,” the man who knowingly does it is surely a sinner. Does G.o.d, through society, require men to sin?

OBJECTION IX.

If not being non-resistants, we concede to mankind the right to frame Governments, which must, from the very nature of man, be more or less evil, the right or duty to support them, when framed, necessarily follows.

ANSWER. I do not think it follows at all. Mankind, that is, any number of them, have a right to set up such forms of wors.h.i.+p as they see fit, but when they have done so, does it necessarily follow that I am in duty bound to support any one of them, whether I approve it or not? Government is precisely like any other voluntary a.s.sociation of individuals--a temperance or anti-slavery society, a bank or railroad corporation. I join it, or not, as duty dictates. If a temperance society exists in the village where I am, that love for my race which bids me seek its highest good, commands me to join it.

So if a Government is formed in the land where I live, the same feeling bids me to support it, if I innocently can. This is the whole length of my duty to Government. From the necessity of the case, and that const.i.tution of things which G.o.d has ordained, it follows that in any specified district, the majority must rule--hence results the duty of the minority to submit. But we must carefully preserve the distinction between _submission_ and _obedience_ --between _submission_ and _support_. If the majority set up an immoral Government, I obey those laws which seem to me good, because they are good--and I submit to all the penalties which my disobedience of the rest brings on me. This is alike the dictate of common sense, and the command of Christianity. And it must be the true doctrine, since any other obliges me to obey the majority if they command me to commit murder, a rule which even the Tory Blackstone has denied. Of course for me to do anything I deem wrong, is the same, in quality, as to commit murder.

OBJECTION X.

But it is said, your theory results in good men leaving government to the dishonest and wicked.

ANSWER. Well, if to sustain government we must sacrifice honesty, government could not be in a more appropriate place, than in the hands of dishonest men.