Chapter VII (2)

Have we the third safeguard, Righteous Officers? I believe no nation ever started with nobler officers than we chose at first. But I think there has been some little change from Washington down through the Tylers and the Polks to the present administration. John Adams, in coming to the presidency, found his son in a high office, and asked his predecessor if it were fit for the President to retain his own son in office. Washington replied, It would be wrong for you to appoint him; but I hope he will not be discharged from office, and so the country be deprived of his valuable services, merely "because he is your son!" What a satire is this on the conduct of men in power at this day! We have had three "second General Washingtons" in the presidential chair since 1829; two new ones are now getting ready, "standing like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start," for that bad eminence. These three past and two future "Washingtons" have never displayed any very remarkable family likeness to the original--who left no descendant--in this particular.[35] I pass over the general conduct of our executive and judicial officers, which does not seem to differ much from that of similar functionaries in England, in France, in Italy, Austria, Turkey, and Spain. But I must speak of some special things in the conduct of some of these persons,--things which ought to be looked at on such a day as this, and in the light of religion. Attempts have lately been made in this city to destroy the juror's power to protect the citizen from the injustice of government,--attempts to break down this safeguard of individual liberty. We have seen a judge charge the grand jury, that, in case of conflict between the law of God and the statutes made by men, the people must "obey both." Then we have seen an attempt made by the government to get a partial jury, who should not represent the country, but should have prejudices against the prisoner at the bar. We have seen a man selected as foreman of the jury who had previously, and before witnesses, declared that all the persons engaged in the case which was to come before him, "ought to be hung." We have seen a man expelled from the jury, after he had taken the juror's oath, because he declared that he had "a general sympathy with the down-trodden and oppressed here and everywhere," and so did not seem likely to "dispatch" the prisoner, as the government desired. This is not all: the judge questions the jurors before their oath, and refuses to allow any one to be impanelled who doubts the constitutionality of the fugitive slave law. Even this is not the end: he charges the jury thus selected, packed, picked, and winnowed, that they are to take the law as he lays it down; that they are only judges of the fact, he exclusively of the law; and, if they find that the prisoner did the deed alleged, then they must return him "Guilty" of the offence charged.

I am no lawyer: I shall not speak here with reference to usages and precedents of the past, only with an eye to the consequences for the future. If the court can thus select a jury to suit itself, mere creatures of its own, what is the use of a jury to try the fact? See the consequences of this decision, that no man shall serve as juror who doubts the constitutionality of a law, and that the jurors are not judges of the law itself, as well as the fact. Let me suppose some cases which may happen. The Constitution of the United States provides that Congress shall not prohibit the free exercise of religion. Suppose that Congress should pass a law to punish any man with death who should pray to the "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." The government wishes to punish an obnoxious orthodox minister for violating this "form of law." It is clearly unjust; but the judge charges the grand jury they are to "obey both" the laws of God and the statutes of men. The grand jury indict the man. He is brought for trial. The law is obviously unconstitutional; but the judge expels from the jury all who think the law is unconstitutional. He selects the personal enemies of the accused, and finds twelve men foolish enough or wicked enough to believe it is constitutional to do what the Constitution declares must not be done; and then proceeds to trial, selecting for foreman the man who has said, "All men that thus pray ought to be hung!" What is the value of your Constitution? The jury might convict, the judge sentence, the President issue his warrant, and the man be hanged in twenty-four hours, for doing a deed which the Constitution itself allows, and Christendom daily practises, and the convictions of two hundred million men require!

It is alleged the jury must not judge of the law, but only of the fact. See the consequences of this principle in several cases. The Secretary of State has declared the rescuing of Shadrach was "treason," and, of course, punishable with death. Suppose the court had charged the jury, that to rescue a man out of the hands of an incompetent officer--an offence which in Boston has sometimes been punished with a fine of five dollars--was "levying war" against the United States, and they were only to find if the prisoner did the deed; and, if so, return a verdict of guilty. Suppose the jury are wicked enough to accept his charge, where is the protection of the citizen? The government may say, to smuggle goods into Boston harbor is "levying war" and hang a man for treason who brings on shore an ounce of camphor in his pocket without paying duties! Is not the jury, in such a case, to judge what the law makes treason?--to decide for itself?

There was once a law making it felony without benefit of clergy to read the Bible in the English language. Suppose the government, wishing to make away with an obnoxious man, should get him indicted next term for this offence, and the judge should declare that the old law is still in force. Is the jury not to judge whether we live under the bloody Mary, or the constitution of Massachusetts?--whether what was once law is so now? If not, then the laws of King Darius or King Pharaoh may be revived whenever Judge Hategood sees fit, and Faithful must hang for it.[36]

Suppose the judge makes a law himself, declaring that, if any one speaks against the justice of the court, he shall be whipped with forty stripes save one, and gets a man indicted under it and brought to trial--is the jury not to judge if there be such a law? Then we might as well give up all legislation, and leave all to the "discretion of the court."

A judge of the United States Court was once displaced on account of mental imbecility. Was Judge Simpleton to determine what was law, what not, for a jury of intelligent men?

Another judge, not long ago, in Boston, in his place in court, gave an opinion in a most important affair, and was drunk when he gave it. I do not mean he was horizontally drunk, but only so that his friends feared "he would break down in court, and expose himself." Was the opinion of a drunken judge to be taken for law by sober men?

Suppose the judge is not a simpleton nor a drunkard, but is only an ordinary lawyer and a political partisan, and appointed to his office because he is a fawning sycophant, and will interpret the law to suit the ambition of the government--a thing that has happened in this city. Is he to lay down the law for the jurors who aim only to live in honorable morality, to hurt no one, and give every man his due?

Suppose the attorneys at the bar know the law better than the attorney on the bench,--a thing that daily happens,--are not the jurors to decide for themselves?

I have chosen fictitious cases to try the principle. Extreme cases make shipwreck of a wicked law, but are favoring winds to bring every just statute into its happy harbor at the last. Will you say we are not likely to suffer from such usurpation? You know what we have suffered within three months past. God only knows what is to come. But no man is ever to seek for a stick if he wishes to beat a dog, or for a cross if he would murder his Saviour. The only way to preserve liberty is by eternal vigilance: we must be jealous of every president, every minister, every judge, every officer, from a king to the meanest commissioner he appoints to kidnap men. You have seen the attempts made to sap and undermine one of the most valuable safeguards of our social welfare,--seen that it excited very little attention; and I wish to warn you of the danger of a false principle. I have waited for this day to speak on this theme. Executive tyranny, with soldiers at its command, must needs be open in its deeds of shame. It may waste the money of the public which cleaves to the suspected hands of its officers: it is not so easy to get the necks of those it hates; for we have no star-chamber of democracy, and here the executive has not many soldiers at command, must ask before it can get them. It did ask, and got "No" for answer. Legislative tyranny must needs be public, and is easily seen. But judicial tyranny is secret, subtle, unseen in its action; and all experience shows it is one of the most dangerous forms of tyranny. A corrupt judge poisons the wells of human society.[37] Scroggs and Jeffries are names deservedly hated by mankind, and there are some American names likely to be added to them. The traditionary respect entertained here for an office which has been graced by some of the noblest men in the land, doubles our danger.

But an attack is made on another safeguard of society, yet more important. We have been told that there is no law higher than a human statute, no law of God above an act of the American Congress. You know how this doctrine of the supremacy of the lower law has been taught in the high places of the State, in the high places of the church, and in the low places of the public press. You know with what sneers men have been assailed who appealed to conscience, to religion, and said, "The law of God is supreme; above all the enactments of mortal men." You have been witness to attempts to howl down the justice of the Almighty. We have had declamation and preaching against the law of God. It is said the French Assembly, some fifty or sixty years ago, voted that there should be no public worship of God; that there was no God to worship; but it was left for politicians and preachers of America, in our time, to declare that there is no law above the caprice of mortal men. Did the French "philosophers" decree speculative atheism? the American "wise men" put it in practice. They deny the function of God. "He has nothing to do with mankind." This doctrine is one of the foulest ever taught, and tends directly to debauch the conscience of the people. What if there were no law higher than an act of Parliament? what would become of the Parliament itself? There is such a thing conceivable as personal, speculative atheism. I think it is a very rare thing. I have never known an atheist: for, with all about us speaking of God; all within us speaking of him; every telescope revealing the infinite Mind in nebulae resolved to groups of systems of suns; every microscope revealing the infinite Father, yea, Mother of the world, in a drop of water, a grain of perishing wood, or an atom of stone; every little pendulum revealing his unchanging law on a small scale; and this whole group of solar systems, in its slow and solemn swing through heavenly space, disclosing the same law on a scale which only genius at first can comprehend,--it is not easy to arrive at personal, speculative atheism. It would be a dreadful thing, the stark denial of a God. To say there is no infinite Mind in finite matter, no order in the universe, in providence only a fate, no God for all, no Father for any, only an inextinguishable nothing that fills the desert and illimitable ether of space and time, the whence and whither of all that are,--such a belief is conceivable; but I do not believe that there is a single atheist living on the whole round world. There is no general danger of personal, speculative atheism. When M. Lalande declared that he saw no God through his telescope, though he meant not to deny the real God of nature, the world rang with indignation at an astronomer undevout and mad. But practical, political atheism has become a common thing in America, in New England. This is not a denial of the essence of God and his being, but of his function as Supreme Ruler of the church, of the State, of the people, of the universe. Of that there is danger. The devil of ambition tempts the great man to it; the devil of covetousness, the little man. Both strike hands, and say, "There is no higher law;" and low men lift up their mean foreheads in the pulpits of America and say, "It is the voice of a God, and not of a man. There is no higher law." The greatest understanding of this land, with haughty scorn, has lately said, "The North Mountain is very high; the Blue Ridge, higher still; the Alleghanies higher than either; and yet this 'higher law' ranges further than an eagle's flight above the highest peaks of the Alleghanies."[38] The impious taunt was received with "laughter" by men who have long acted on the maxim that there is no law of God, and whose State is impoverished by the attempt to tread His law under foot. I know men in America have looked so long at political economy that they have forgotten political morality, and seem to think politics only national housekeeping, and he the best ruler who buys cheapest and sells dearest. But I confess I am amazed when statesmen forget the lessons of those great men that have gone before us, and built up the social state, whose "deep foundations have been laid with prayer." What! is there no law above the North Mountain; above the Blue Ridge; higher than the Alleghanies? Why, the old Hebrew poet told us of One "which removeth the mountains, and they know not; which overturneth them in his anger; which alone spreadeth out the heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of the sea. Lo! he goeth by me, and I see him not; he passeth on also, but I perceive him not." Yes, there is One--his law "an eagle's flight above the Alleghanies"--who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, whose strong hand setteth fast the mountains; yea, One who hath weighed the mountains in scales; before whom all nations are as a very little thing. Yes, Father in heaven! before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Yea, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Thy name alone is excellent; thy glory above the earth and heaven!

No higher law for States than the poor statutes they enact!

"Among the assemblies of the great
A greater Ruler takes his seat;
The God of heaven as Judge surveys
These 'gods of earth' and all their ways:--
'Why will you frame oppressive laws?
Or why support the unrighteous cause?
When will you once defend the poor,
That foes may vex the saints no more?'
They know not, Lord, nor will they know;
Dark are the ways in which they go;
Their name of 'earthly gods' is vain,
For they shall fall and die like men."

It would be a great calamity for this nation to lose all of its mighty riches, and have nothing left but the soil we stand on. But, in seven or eight generations, it would all be restored again; for all the wealth of America has been won in less time. We are not two hundred and fifty years from Jamestown and Plymouth. It would be a great misfortune to lose all the foremost families of the nation. But England lost hers in the War of the Roses; France, in her Revolution. Nature bore great men anew, and fresh families sprung up as noble as the old. But, if this generation in America could believe that there was no law of God for you and me to keep,--say the acts of Congress what they might say,--no law to tame the ambition of men of mountain greatness, and curb the eagle's flight of human tyranny, that would be a calamity which the nation would never recover from. No! then religion would die out; affection fall dead; conscience would perish; intellect give up the ghost, and be no more. No law higher than human will! No watchmaker can make a long pendulum vibrate so quick as a short. In this very body there is that law. I wake and watch and will; my private caprice turns my hand, now here, now there. But who controls my breath? Who bids this heart beat all day long, and all the night, sleep I or wake? Whose subtle law holds together these particles of flesh, of blood, and bone in marvellous vitality? Who gives this eye its power to see, and opens wide the portal of the ear? and who enchants, with most mysterious life, this wondrous commonwealth of dust I call myself? It is the same Hand whose law is "higher than the Blue Ridge," an "eagle's flight above the Alleghanies." Who rules the State, and, out of a few stragglers that fled here to New England for conscience sake, built up this mighty, wealthy State? Was it Carver and Winthrop who did all this; Standish and Saltonstall? Was it the cunning craftiness of mightiest men that consciously, well knowing what they did, laid the foundations of our New England State and our New England Church? Why, the boys at school know better. It was the eternal God whose higher law the Pilgrim and the Puritan essayed to keep, not knowing whereunto the thing would grow. Shall the fool say in his heart there is no God? He cannot make a hair grow on his head but by the eternal law of his Father in heaven. Will the politician say there is no law of God for States? Ask the sorrowing world; let Austria and Hungary make reply. Nay, ask the Southern States of America to show us their rapid increase in riches, in civilization; to show us their schools and their scholars, their literature, their science, and their art! No law of God for States! It is writ on the iron leaf of destiny, "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a curse to any people." Let the wicked hand of the South join with the Northern wicked hand, iniquity shall not prosper. But the eye of the wicked shall fail; they shall not escape; their hope shall be as giving up the ghost, because their tongue and their doings are against the Lord, to provoke the eyes of his glory. Their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, if they cast away the law of the Lord, and despise the word of the Holy One.

In America the people are strongly attached to the institutions, constitutions, and statutes of the land. On the whole, they are just establishments. If not, we made them ourselves, and can make them better when we will. The execution of laws is also popular. Nowhere in the world is there a people so orderly, so much attached to law, as the people of these Northern States. But one law is an exception. The people of the North hate the fugitive slave law, as they have never hated any law since the stamp act. I know there are men in the Northern States who like it,--who would have invented slavery, had it not existed long before. But the mass of the Northern people hate this law, because it is hostile to the purpose of all just human law, hostile to the purpose of society, hostile to the purpose of individual life; because it is hostile to the law of God,--bids the wrong, forbids the right. We disobey that, for the same reason that we keep other laws: because we reverence the law of God. Why should we keep that odious law which makes us hated wherever justice is loved? Because we must sometimes do a disagreeable deed to accomplish an agreeable purpose? The purpose of that law is to enable three hundred thousand slaveholders to retake on our soil the men they once stole on other soil! Most of the city churches of the North seem to think that is a good thing. Very well: is it worth while for fifteen million freemen to transgress the plainest of natural laws, the most obvious instincts of the human heart, and the plainest duties of Christianity, for that purpose? The price to pay is the religious integrity of fifteen million men; the thing to buy is a privilege for three hundred thousand slaveholders to use the North as a hunting-field whereon to kidnap men at our cost. Judge you of that bargain.

* * * * *

But I must end this long discourse. The other day I spoke of the vices of passion: great and terrible evils they wrought. They were as nothing to the vices of calculation. Passion was the flesh, ambition the devil. There are vices of democracy, vices of radicalism; very great vices they are too. You may read of them in Hume and Alison. They are painted black as night and bloody as battle in tory journals of England, and the more vulgar tory journals of America. Democracy wrought terrible evils in Britain in Cromwell's time; in France at her Revolution. But to the vices, the crimes, the sins of aristocracy, of conservatism,--they are what the fleeting lust of the youth is to the cool, hard, calculating, and indomitable ambition of the grown man. Radicalism pillaged Governor Hutchinson's house, threw some tea into the ocean; conservatism set up its stamp act, and drove America into revolution. Radicalism helped Shadrach out of court; conservatism enacted the fugitive slave bill. Radicalism sets up a republic that is red for six months; conservatism sets up a red monarchy covered with blood for hundreds of years. Judge you from which we have the most to fear.

* * * * *

Such are the safeguards of society; such our condition. What shall we do? Nobody would dare pretend to build a church except on righteousness; that is, the rock of ages. Can you build a state on any other foundation--that house upon the sand? What should you think of a minister of the church who got his deacons together, and made a creed, and said, "There is no higher law; no law of God. You, laymen, must take our word for your guidance, and do just as we bid you, and violate the plainest commands of conscience?" What would be atheism in a minister of the church,--is that patriotism in a minister of the state? A bad law is a most powerful instrument to demoralize and debauch the people. If it is a law of their own making, it is all the worse. There is no real and manly welfare for a man, without a sense of religious obligation to God; none in a family, none in a church, none in a state. We want righteousness in the people, in their establishments, in their officers. I adjure you to reverence a government that is right, statutes that are right, officers that are right; but to disobey every thing that is wrong. I entreat you by your love for your country, by the memory of your fathers, by your reverence for Jesus Christ, yea, by the deep and holy love of God which Jesus taught, and you now feel.

FOOTNOTES:

[34] See note on Function of the Jury, above, p. 165.

[35] In these times of political corruption, when a postmaster in a country village is turned out of office for voting for a representative to Congress who exposed the wickedness of a prominent member of the cabinet, it is pleasant to read such letters as those of Washington to Benjamin Lincoln, March 11, 1789, and to Bushrod Washington, July 27, 1789, in Sparks's Writings of Washington, vol. ix. p. 477, _et seq._, and x. p. 73, _et seq._

[36] In the Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan gives a case which it is probable was fictitious only in the names of the parties. Faithful was indicted before Lord Hategood for a capital offence. Mr. Envy testified. Then the judge asked him, Hast thou any more to say? Envy replied: "My Lord, I could say much more, only I would not be tedious to the court. Yet, if need be, when the other gentlemen have given in their evidence, rather than any thing should be wanting that will dispatch him, I will enlarge my testimony against him."

Lord Hategood stated the law--there were three statutes against the prisoner: 1. The act of King Pharaoh, in 1 Exodus 22; 2. That of King Nebuchadnezzar in 3 Daniel 6; and 3. That of King Darius in 6 Daniel 7. The jury took "the law from the ruling of the court," and, having been carefully packed, to judge from the names, and all just men expelled from their number, they readily found such a verdict as the government had previously determined upon.

The same thing, _mutatis mutandis_, has been attempted in America, in Boston, and we may fear that in some instances it will succeed.

[37] Since the first publication of this sermon we have seen eight-and-thirty men indicted for treason under the fugitive slave law, because they resisted the attempt to kidnap one of their number, and killed one of the kidnappers. This indictment was found at the instigation of an officer of the government, who adds new infamy to the name of the great first murderer.

[38] Speech at Capon Springs.