Volume Iii Part 12 (1/2)
Now, then, to let alone details, and generalize into one all the causes of our condition, this is the result: We have found welfare just so far as we have followed the democratic idea, and enacted justice into law.
We have lost welfare just so far as we have followed the despotic idea, and made iniquity into a statute. So far as we have reaffirmed the ordinance of nature and reenacted the will of G.o.d, we have succeeded. So far as we have refused to do that, we have failed. Of old it was written, ”Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”
And now a word of our dangers. There seems no danger from abroad; from any foreign State, unless we begin the quarrel; none from famine. The real danger, in one word, is this--That we shall try to enact injustice into a law, and with the force of the nation to make iniquity obeyed.
See some of the special forms of injustice which threaten us, or are already here. I shall put them into the form of ideas.
1. One, common among politicians is, that the State is for a portion of the people, not the whole. Thus it has been declared that the Const.i.tution of the United States did not recognize the three million slaves as citizens, or extend to them any right which it guarantees to other men. It would be a sad thing for the State to declare there was a single child in the whole land to whom it owed no protection. What, then, if it attempts to take three millions from under its s.h.i.+eld? In obedience to this false idea, the counsel has been given, that we must abstain from all ”Political agitation” of the most important matter before the people. We must leave that to our masters, for the State is for them, it is not for you and me. They must say whether we shall ”agitate” and ”discuss” these things or not. The politicians are our masters, and may lay their fingers on our lips when they will.
2. The next false idea is,--That government is chiefly for the protection of property. This has long been the idea on which some men legislated, but on the 19th day of this month, the distinguished Secretary of State, in a speech at New York, used these words: ”The great object of government is the protection of property at home and respect and renown abroad.” You see what the policy must be where the government is for the protection of the hat, and only takes care of the head so far as it serves to wear a hat. Here the man is the accident, and the dollar is the substance for which the man is to be protected. I think a notion very much like this prevails extensively in the great cities of America, North and South. I think the chief politicians of the two parties are agreed in this--That government is for the protection of property, and every thing else is subsidiary. With many persons politics are a part of their business; the state-house and the custom-house are only valued for their relation to trade. This idea is fatal to a good government.
Think of this, that ”The great object of government is the protection of property.” Tell that to Samuel Adams, and John Hanc.o.c.k, and Was.h.i.+ngton, and the older Winthrops, and the Bradfords and Carvers! Why! it seems as if the buried majesty of Ma.s.sachusetts would start out of the ground, and with its Bible in its hand say--This is false!
3. The third false idea is this--That you are morally bound to obey the statute, let it be never so plainly wrong and opposed to your conscience. This is the most dangerous of all the false ideas yet named.
Ambitious men, in an act of pa.s.sion, make iniquity into a law, and then demand that you and I, in our act of prayer, shall submit to it and make it our daily life; that we shall not try to repeal and discuss and agitate it! This false idea lies at the basis of every despot's throne, the idea that men can make right wrong, and wrong right. It has come to be taught in New England, to be taught in our churches--though seldom there, to their honor be it spoken, except in the churches of commerce in large towns--that if wrong is law, you and I must do what it demands, though conscience declares it is treason against man and treason against G.o.d. The worst doctrines of Hobbes and Filmer are thus revived.
I have sometimes been amazed at the talk of men who call on us to keep the fugitive slave law, one of the most odious laws in a world of odious laws--a law not fit to be made or kept. I have been amazed that they should dare to tell us the law of G.o.d, writ on the heavens and our hearts, never demanded we should disobey the laws of men! Well, suppose it were so. Then it was old Daniel's duty at Darius's command to give up his prayer; but he prayed three times a day, with his windows up. Then it was John's and Peter's duty to forbear to preach of Christianity; but they said, ”Whether it be right in the sight of G.o.d to hearken unto you more than unto G.o.d, judge ye.” Then it was the duty of Amram and Jochebed to take up their new-born Moses and cast him into the Nile, for the law of king Pharaoh, commanding it, was ”const.i.tutional,” and ”political agitation” was discountenanced as much in Goshen as in Boston. But Daniel did not obey; John and Peter did not fail to preach Christianity; and Amram and Jochebed refused ”pa.s.sive obedience” to the king's decree! I think it will take a strong man all this winter to reverse the judgment which the world has pa.s.sed on these three cases.
But it is ”innocent” to try.
However, there is another ancient case, mentioned in the Bible, in which the laws commanded one thing and conscience just the opposite. Here is the record of the law:--”Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that if any one knew where he [Jesus] were, he should show it, that they might take him.” Of course, it became the official and legal business of each disciple who knew where Christ was, to make it known to the authorities. No doubt James and John could leave all and follow him, with others of the people who knew not the law of Moses, and were accursed; nay the women, Martha and Mary, could minister unto him of their substance, could wash his feet with tears, and wipe them with the hairs of their head. They did it gladly, of their own free will, and took pleasure therein, I make no doubt. There was no merit in that--”Any man can perform an agreeable duty.” But there was found one disciple who could ”perform a disagreeable duty.” He went, perhaps ”with alacrity,” and betrayed his Saviour to the marshal of the district of Jerusalem, who was called a centurion. Had he no affection for Jesus? No doubt; but he could conquer his prejudices, while Mary and John could not.
Judas Iscariot has rather a bad name in the Christian world: he is called ”The son of perdition,” in the New Testament, and his conduct is reckoned a ”transgression;” nay, it is said the devil ”entered into him,” to cause this hideous sin. But all this it seems was a mistake; certainly, if we are to believe our ”republican” lawyers and statesmen, Iscariot only fulfilled his ”const.i.tutional obligations.” It was only ”on that point,” of betraying his Saviour, that the const.i.tutional law required him to have any thing to do with Jesus. He took his ”thirty pieces of silver”--about fifteen dollars; a yankee is to do it for ten, having fewer prejudices to conquer--it was his legal fee, for value received. True, the Christians thought it was ”the wages of iniquity,”
and even the Pharisees--who commonly made the commandment of G.o.d of none effect by their traditions--dared not defile the temple with this ”price of blood;” but it was honest money. It was as honest a fee as any American commissioner or deputy will ever get for a similar service. How mistaken we are! Judas Iscariot is not a traitor; he was a great patriot; he conquered his ”prejudices,” performed ”a disagreeable duty”
as an office of ”high morals and high principle;” he kept the ”law” and the ”Const.i.tution,” and did all he could to ”save the Union;” nay, he was a saint, ”not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.” ”The law of G.o.d never commands us to disobey the law of man.” _Sancte Iscariote ora pro n.o.bis._
It is a little strange to hear this talk in Boston, and hear the doctrine of pa.s.sive obedience to a law which sets Christianity at defiance, taught here in the face of the Adamses, and Hanc.o.c.k, and Was.h.i.+ngton! It is amazing to hear this talk, respecting such a law, amongst merchants. Do they keep the usury laws? I never heard of but one money-lender who kept them,[18] and he has been a long time dead, and I think he left no kith nor kin! The temperance law,--is that kept? The fifteen gallon law,--were men so very pa.s.sive in their obedience to that, that they could not even ”agitate?” yet it violated no law of G.o.d--was not unchristian. When the government interferes with the rumsellers' property, the law must be trod under foot; but when the law insists that a man shall be made a slave, I must give up conscience in my act of prayer, and stoop to the vile law men have made in their act of pa.s.sion!
It is curious to hear men talk of law and order in Boston, when the other day one or two hundred smooth-faced boys, and youths beardless as girls, could disturb a meeting of three or four thousand men, for two hours long; and the chief of the police, and the mayor of the city stood and looked on, when a single word from their lips might have stilled the tumult and given honest men a hearing.[19]
Talk of keeping the fugitive slave law! Come, come, we know better. Men in New England know better than this. We know that we ought not to keep a wicked law, and that it must not be kept when the law of G.o.d forbids!
But the effect of a law which men cannot keep without violating conscience, is always demoralizing. There are men who know no higher law than the statute of the State. When good men cannot keep a law that is base, some bad ones will say, ”Let us keep no law at all,”--then where does the blame lie? On him that enacts the outrageous law.
The idea that a statute of man frees us from obligation to the law of G.o.d, is a dreadful thing. When that becomes the deliberate conviction of the great ma.s.s of the people, North or South, then I shall despair of human nature; then I shall despair of justice, and despair of G.o.d. But this time will never come.
One of the most awful spectacles I ever saw, was this: A vast mult.i.tude attempting, at an orator's suggestion, to howl down the ”Higher law,”
and when he said, ”Will you have this to rule over you?” they answered, ”Never!” and treated the ”Higher law” to a laugh and a howl! It was done in Faneuil Hall;[20] under the eyes of the three Adamses, Hanc.o.c.k, and Was.h.i.+ngton; and the howl rung round the venerable arches of that hall! I could not but ask, ”Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? the rulers of the earth set themselves, and kings take counsel against the Lord and say, 'Let us break his bands asunder, and cast off his yoke from us.'” Then I could not but remember that it was written, ”He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall have them in derision. He taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and the inhabitants of the earth are as gra.s.shoppers before Him.” Howl down the law of G.o.d at a magistrate's command! Do this in Boston! Let us remember this--but with charity.
Men say there is danger of disunion, of our losing fealty for the Const.i.tution. I do not believe it yet! Suppose it be so. The Const.i.tution is the machinery of the national mill; and suppose we agree to take it out and put in new; we might get worse, very true, but we might get better. There have been some modern improvements; we might introduce them to the State as well as the mill. But I do not believe there is this danger. I do not believe the people of Ma.s.sachusetts think so. I think they are strongly attached to the Union yet, and if they thought ”the Union was in peril--this day,” and every thing the nation prizes was likely to be destroyed, we should not have had a meeting of a few thousands in Faneuil Hall, but the people would have filled up the city of Worcester with a hundred thousand men, if need be; and they would have come with the cartridge-box at their side, and the firelock on their shoulder. That is the way the people of Ma.s.sachusetts would a.s.semble if they thought there was real danger.
I do not believe the South will withdraw from the Union, with five million free men, and three million slaves. I think Ma.s.sachusetts would be no loser, I think the North would be no loser; but I doubt if the North will yet allow them to go if so disposed. Do you think the South is so mad as to wish it?
But I think I know of one cause which may dissolve the Union--one which ought to dissolve it, if put in action: that is, a serious attempt to execute the fugitive slave law, here and in all the North. I mean an attempt to recover and take back all the fugitive slaves in the North, and to punish, with fine and imprisonment, all who aid or conceal them.
The South has browbeat us again and again. She has smitten us on the one cheek with ”Protection,” and we have turned the other, kissing the rod; she has smitten that with ”Free trade.” She has imprisoned our citizens; driven off, with scorn and loathing, our officers sent to ask const.i.tutional justice. She has spit upon us. Let her come to take back the fugitives--and, trust me, she ”will wake up the lion.”
In my humble opinion, this law is a wedge--sharp at one end, but wide at the other--put in between the lower planks of our s.h.i.+p of State. If it be driven home, we go to pieces. But I have no thought that that will be done quite yet. I believe the great politicians, who threatened to drive it through the gaping seams of our argosy, will think twice before they strike again. Nay, that they will soon be very glad to bury the wedge ”Where the tide ebbs and flows four times a day.” I do not expect this of their courage, but of their fears; not of their justice--I am too old for that--but of their concern for property, which it is the ”great object of government” to protect.