Chapter VI (1)

THE CHIEF SINS OF THE PEOPLE.--A SERMON DELIVERED AT THE MELODEON, BOSTON, ON FAST DAY, APRIL 10, 1851.

My Friends,--This is a day of Public Humiliation and Prayer. We have one every year. It is commonly in the city churches only a farce, because there is no special occasion for it, and the general need is not felt. But such is the state of things in the Union at this moment, and particularly in Boston, that, if it were not a custom, it would be a good thing, even if it were for the first time in the history of our country, to have such a day for Humiliation and Prayer, that we consider the state of the nation, and look at our conduct in reference to the great principles of religion, and see how we stand before God; for these are times that try men's souls.

Last Sunday, I purposely disappointed you, and turned off from what was nearest to your heart and was nearest to mine,--a subject that would have been easy to preach on without any preparation. Then I asked you to go to the Fountain of all strength, and there prepare yourselves for the evils that we know not of. To-day, the Governor has asked us to come together, and consider, in the spirit of Christianity, the public sins of the community, to contemplate the value of our institutions, and to ask the blessing of God on the poor, the afflicted, and the oppressed. I am glad of this occasion; and I will improve it, and ask your attention to a sermon of The Chief Sins of this People.

I have said that these are times that try men's souls. This is such an occasion as never came before, and, I trust, never will again. I have much to say to you, much more than I intend to say to-day, much more than there are hours enough in this day to speak. Many things I shall pass by. I shall detain you to-day somewhat longer than is my wont; but do not fear, I will look out for your attention. I simply ask you to be calm, to be composed, and to hear with silence what I have to say.

To understand these things, we must begin somewhat far off.

The purpose of human life is to form a manly character, to get the best development of body and of spirit,--of mind, conscience, heart, soul. This is the end: all else is the means. Accordingly, that is not the most successful life in which a man gets the most pleasure, the most money or ease, the most power of place, honor, and fame; but that in which a man gets the most manhood, performs the greatest amount of human duty, enjoys the greatest amount of human right, and acquires the greatest amount of manly character. It is of no importance whether he win this by wearing a hod upon his shoulders, or a crown upon his head. It is the character, and not the crown, I value. The crown perishes with the head that wore it; but the character lives with the immortal man who achieved it; and it is of no consequence whether that immortal man goes up to God from a throne or from a gallows.

Every man has some one preponderating object in life,--an object that he aims at and holds supreme. Perhaps he does not know it. But he thinks of this in his day-dreams, and his dreams by night. It colors his waking hours, and is with him in his sleep. Sometimes it is sensual pleasure that he wants; sometimes money; sometimes office, fame, social distinction; sometimes it is the quiet of a happy home, with wife and children, all comfortable and blessed; sometimes it is excellence in a special science or art, or department of literature; sometimes it is a special form of philanthropy; and sometimes it is the attainment of great, manly character.

This supreme object of desire is sometimes different at different times in a man's life, but in general is mainly the same all through. For "The child is father of the man," and his days bound each to each, if not by natural piety, then by unnatural profaneness. This desire may act with different intensity in the active and passive periods, in manhood and in age. It is somewhat modified by the season of passion, and by the season of ambition.

If this object of special desire be worthy, so is the character in general; if base, so is the man. For this special desire becomes the master-motive in the man; and, if strong, establishes a unity in his consciousness, and calls out certain passions, appetites, powers of mind and conscience, heart and soul; and, in a long life, the man creates himself anew in the image of his ideal desire. This desire, good or bad, which sways the man, is writ on his character, and thence copied into the countenance; and lust or love, frivolity or science, interest or principle, mammon or God, is writ on the man. Still this unity is seldom whole and complete. With most men there are exceptional times, when they turn off a little from their great general pursuit. Simeon the Stylite comes down from his pillar-top, and chaffers in the market-place with common folks. Jeffries is even just once or twice in his life, and Wilkes is honorable two or three times. Even when the chief desire is a high and holy one, I should not expect a man to go through life without ever committing an error or a sin. When I was a youngster, just let loose from the theological school, I thought differently; but at this day, when I have felt the passions of life, and been stirred by the ambitions of life, I know it must be expected that a man will stumble now and then. I make allowances for that in myself, as I do in others. These are the exceptional periods in a man's life,--the eddies in the stream. The stream runs down hill all the time, though the eddy may for a time apparently run up.

Now, as with men, so it is with nations. The purpose of national life is to bring forth and bring up manly men, who do the most of human duty, have the most of human rights, and enjoy the most of human welfare. So that is not the most successful nation which fills the largest space, which occupies the longest time, which produces the most cattle, corn, cotton, or cloth, but that which produces the most men. And, in reference to men, you must count not numbers barely, but character quite as much. That is not the most successful nation which has an exceptional class of men, highly cultured, well-bodied, well-minded, well-born, well-bred, at the one end of society; and at the other a mighty multitude, an instantial class, poor, ill-born, ill-bred, ill-bodied, and ill-minded too, as in England; but that is the most successful nation which has the whole body of its people well-born, well-bred, well-bodied, and well-minded too; and those are the best institutions which accomplish this best; those worst, which accomplish it least. The government, the society, the school, or the church, which does this work, is a good government, society, school, or church; that which does it not, is good for nothing.

As with men, so with nations. Each has a certain object of chief desire, which object prevails over others. The nation is not conscious of it,--less so, indeed, than the individual; but, silently, it governs the nation's life. Sometimes this chief desire is the aggrandizement of the central power,--the monarchy: it was so once in France; but, God be praised! is not so now. Then devotion to the king's person was held as the greatest national excellence, and disrespect for the king was treason, the greatest national crime. The people must not dare to whisper against their king. Sometimes it is the desire to build up an aristocracy. It was once so in Venice. It may be an aristocracy of priests, of soldiers, of nobles, or an aristocracy of merchants. Sometimes it is to build up a middle class of gentry, as in Basel and Berne. It may be a military desire, as in ancient Rome; it may be ecclesiastical ambition, as in modern Rome; or commercial ambition, as in London and many other places.

The chief object of desire is not always the same in the course of a nation's history. A nation now greatens the centripetal power, strengthening the king and weakening the people; now it greatens the centrifugal power, weakening the king and strengthening the people. But, commonly, you see some one desire runs through all the nation's history, only modified by its youth, or manhood, or old age, and by circumstances which react upon the nation as the nation acts upon them.

This chief object of desire may be permanent, and so govern the whole nation for all its history. Or it may be, on the other hand, a transient desire, which is to govern it for a time. In either case, it will appear prominently in the controlling classes; either in the classes which control all through, or in such as last only for a time. Thus the military desire appeared chiefly in the patricians of old Rome, and not much in the plebeians; the commercial ambition appeared in the nobles of Venice; the ecclesiastical in the priests of modern Rome, where the people care little for the church, though quite as much perhaps as it deserves.

As the chief desire of the individual calls out appetites and passions, which are the machinery of that desire, and reconstructs the man in its image; so the desire of a nation, transient or permanent, becoming the master-motive of the people, calls out certain classes of men, who become its exponents, its machinery, and they make the constitution, institutions, and laws to correspond thereto.

As with one man, so with the millions, there may be fluctuations of purpose for a time. I cannot expect that one man, or many men, will always pursue an object without at some time violating fundamental principles. I might have thought so once. But as I live longer, and see the passion and the ambition of men, see the force of circumstances, I know better. No ship sails across the ocean with a straight course, without changing a sail: it frequently leaves its direct line, now "standing" this way, now that; and the course is a very crooked one, although, as a whole, it is towards the mark.

America is a young nation, composite, not yet unified; and it is, therefore, not quite so easy to say what is the chief desire of the people; but, if I understand American history, this desire is the Love of Individual Liberty. Nothing has been so marked in our history as this. We are consciously, in part, yet still more unconsciously, aiming at democracy,--at a government of all the people, by all the people, and for the sake of all the people. Of course that must be a government by the higher law of God, by the Eternal Justice to which you and I and all of us owe reverence. We all love freedom for ourselves; one day we shall love it for every man,--for the tawny Indian and the sable Negro, as much as for you and me. This love of freedom has appeared in the ideas of New England,--and New England was once America; it was once the soul, although not the body of America. It appeared in its political action and its ecclesiastical action, in the State and in the church, and in all the little towns. In general, every change in the constitution of a free State makes it more democratic; every change in local law is for democracy, not against it. We have broken with the old feudal tradition,--broken forever with that. I think this love of individual liberty is the specific desire of the people. If we are proud of any thing, it is of our free institutions. I know there are men who are prouder of wealth than of any thing else: by and by I shall have a word to say of them. But in Massachusetts, New England, in the North, if we should appeal to the great body of the people, and "poll the house," and ask of all what they were proudest of, they would not say, of our cattle, or cotton, or corn, or cloth; but it is of our freedom, of our men and women. Leaving out of the calculation the abounding class, which is corrupt everywhere, and the perishing class, which is the vassal as it is the creature of the abounding class, and as corrupt and selfish here as everywhere, we shall find that seven-eighths of the people of New England are eminently desirous of this one thing. This desire will carry the day in any fifty years to come, as it has done in two hundred and fifty years past. The great political names of our history are all on its side: Washington, the Adamses--both of them, God bless them!--Jefferson, Madison, Jackson, these were all friends of liberty. I know the exceptions in the history of some of these men, and do not deny them. Other American names, dear to the people, are of the same stamp. The national literature, so far as we have any national literature, is democratic. I know there is what passes for American literature, because it grows on American soil, but which is just as far from being indigenous to America as the orange is from being indigenous to Cape Cod. This literature is a poor, miserable imitation of the feudal literature of old Europe. Perhaps it is now the prominent literature of the time. One day America will take it and cast it out from her. The true American literature is very poor, is very weak, is almost miserable now; but it has one redeeming quality,--it is true to freedom, it is true to democracy.

In the Revolution this desire of the nation was prominent, and came to consciousness. It was the desire of the most eminent champions of liberty. At one time in the history of the nation, the platform of speakers was in advance of the floor that was covered by the people at large, because at that time the speakers became conscious of the idea which possessed the hearts of the people. That is the reason why John Hancock, the two Adamses, and Jefferson, came into great prominence before the people. They were more the people than the people themselves; more democratic than the democrats. I know, and I think it must be quite plain in our history, that this has been the chief desire of the people. If so, it determines our political destination.

However, with nations as with men, there are exceptional desires; one of which, with the American nation at present, is the desire for wealth. Just now, that is the most obvious and preponderate desire in the consciousness of the people. It has increased surprisingly in fifty years. It is the special, the chief desire of the controlling class. By the controlling class, I mean what are commonly called "our first men." I admit exceptions, and state the general rule. With them every thing gives way to money, and money gives way to nothing, neither to man nor to God.

See some proofs of this. There are two ways of getting money; one is by trade, the other is by political office. The pursuit of money, in one or the other of these ways, is the only business reckoned entirely "commendable" and "respectable." There are other callings which are very noble in themselves, and deemed so by mankind; but here they are not thought "commendable" and "respectable," and accordingly you very seldom see young men, born in what is called "the most respectable class of society," engaged in any thing except the pursuit of money by trade or by office. There are exceptions; but the sons of "respectable men," so called, seldom engage in the pursuit of any thing but money by trade or office. This is the chief desire of a majority of the young men of talent, ambition, and education. Even in colleges more respect is paid to money than to genius. The purse is put before the pen. In the churches, wealth is deemed better than goodness or piety. It names towns and colleges; and he is thought the greatest benefactor of a university who endows it with money, not with mind. In giving name to a street in Boston, you call the wealthy end after a rich man, and only the poor end after a man that was good and famous. Money controls the churches. It draws veils of cotton over the pulpit window, to color "the light that cometh from above." As yet the churches are not named after men whose only virtue is metallic, but the recognized pillars of the churches are all pillars of gold. Festus does not tremble before Paul, but Paul before Festus. The pulpit looks down to the pews for its gospel, not up to the eternal God. Is there a rich pro-slavery man in the parish? The minister does not dare read a petition from an oppressed slave asking God that his "unalienable rights" be given him. He does not dare to ask alms for a fugitive. St. Peter is the old patron saint of the Holy Catholic Church. St. Hunker is the new patron saint of the churches of commerce, Catholic and Protestant.

Money controls the law as well as the gospel. The son of a great man and noble is forgotten if the father dies poor; but the mantle of the rich man falls on the son's shoulders. If the son be only half so manly as his sire, and twice as rich, he is sure to be doubly honored. Money supplies defects of character, defects of culture. It is deemed better than education, talent, genius, and character, all put together. Was it not written two thousand years ago in the Proverbs, it "answereth all things?" Look round and see. It does not matter how you get or keep it. "The end justifies the means." Edmund Burke, or somebody else, said "Something must be pardoned to the spirit of liberty." Now it is "Something must be pardoned" to the love of money, nothing "to the spirit of liberty." We find that rich men will move out of town on the last day of April, to avoid taxation on the first day of May. That is nothing. It is very "respectable," very "honorable," indeed! I do not believe that there is any master-carpenter or master-blacksmith in Boston who would not be ashamed to do so. But men of the controlling classes do not hesitate! No matter how you get money. You may rent houses for rum-shops and for brothels; you may make rum, import rum, sell rum, to the ruin of the thousands whom you thereby bring down to the kennel and the almshouse and the jail. If you get money by that, no matter: it is "clean money," however dirtily got.

A merchant can send his ships to sea, and in the slave-trade acquire gold, and live here in Boston, New York, or Philadelphia; and his gold will be good sterling gold, no matter how he got it! In political office, if you are a Senator from California or Oregon, you may draw "constructive mileage," and pay yourself two or three thousand dollars for a journey never made from home, and two or three thousand more back to your home. So you filch thousands of dollars out of the public purse, and you are the "Honorable Senator" just as before. You have got the money, no matter how. You may be a Senator from Massachusetts, and you may take the "trust fund," offered you by the manufacturers of cotton, and be bound as their "retained attorney," by your "retaining fee," and you are still "the Honorable Senator from Massachusetts," not hurt one jot in the eyes of the controlling classes. If you are Secretary of State, you may take forty or fifty thousand dollars from State Street and Wall Street, and suffer no discredit at all. At one end of the Union they will deny the fact as "too atrocious to be believed" at this end they admit it, and say it was "honorable in the people to give it," and "honorable in the Secretary to take it."

"Alas! the small discredit of a bribe
Scarce hurts the master, but undoes the scribe."

It would sound a little strange to some people, if we should find that the judges of a court had received forty or fifty thousand dollars from men who were plaintiffs in that Court. You and I would remember that a gift blindeth the eyes of the prudent, how much more of the profligate! But it would be "honorable" in the plaintiffs to give it; "honorable" in the judges to take it!

Hitherto I have called your attention to the proofs of the preponderance of money. I will now point you to signs, which are not exactly proofs, of this immediate worship of money. See these signs in Boston.

When the Old South Church was built, when Christ's Church in Salem Street, when King's Chapel, when Brattle Square Church, they were respectively the costliest buildings in town. They were symbols of religion, as churches always are; symbols of the popular esteem for religion. Out of the poverty of the people, great sums of money were given for these "Houses of God." They said, like David of old, It is a shame that we dwell in a palace of cedars, and the Ark of the Most High remains under the curtains of a tent. How is it now? A crockery shop overlooks the roof-tree of the church where once the eloquence of a Channing enchanted to heaven the worldly hearts of worldly men. Now a hotel looks down on the church which was once all radiant with the sweet piety of a Buckminster. A haberdasher's warehouse overtops the church of the Blessed Trinity; the roof of the shop is almost as tall as the very tower of the church. These things are only symbols. Let us compare Boston, in this respect, with any European city that you can name; let us compare it with gay and frivolous Vienna, the gayest and most frivolous city of all Europe, not setting Paris aside. For though the surface of life in Paris sparkles and glitters all over with radiant and iridescent and dazzling bubbles, empty and ephemeral, yet underneath there flows a stream which comes from the great fountain of nature, and tends on to the ocean of human welfare. No city is more full of deep thought and earnest life. But in Vienna it is not so. Yet even there, above the magnificence of the Herrengasse, above the proud mansions of the Esterhazys and the Schwartzenbergs and the Lichtensteins, above the costly elegance of the imperial palace, St. Stephen's Church lifts its tall spire, and points to God all day long and all the night, a still and silent emblem of a power higher than any mandate of the Kings of earth; ay, to the Infinite God. Men look up to its cross overtowering the frivolous city, and take a lesson! Here, Trade looks down to find the church.

I am glad that the churches are lower than the shops. I have said it many times, and I say it now. I am glad they are less magnificent than our banks and hotels. I am glad that haberdashers' shops look down on them. Let the outward show correspond to the inward fact. If I am pinched and withered by disease, I will not disguise it from you by wrappages of cloth; but I will let you see that I am shrunken and shrivelled to the bone. If the pulpit is no nearer heaven than the tavern-bar, let that fact appear. If the desk in the counting-room is to give law to the desk in the church, do not commit the hypocrisy of putting the pulpit-desk above the counting-room. Let us see where we are.

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The consequence of such causes as are symbolized by these facts must needs appear in our civilization. Men tell us there is no law higher than mercantile! Do you wonder at it? It was said in deeds before words; the architecture of Boston told it before the politicians. Money is the god of our idolatry. Let the fact appear in his temples. Money is master now, all must give way to it,--that to nothing: the church, the State, the law, is not for man, but money.

Let the son of a distinguished man beat a watchman, knowing him to be such, and be brought before a Justice (it would be "levying war" if a mulatto had done so to the marshal); he is bailed off for two hundred dollars. But let a black man have in his pockets a weapon, which the Constitution and laws of Massachusetts provide that any man may have if he please, he is brought to trial and bound over for--two hundred dollars, think you? No! but for six hundred dollars! three times as much as is required of the son of the Secretary of State for assaulting a magistrate![26]

The Secretary of State publicly declared, a short time since, that "The great object of government is the protection of property at home, and respect and renown abroad." I thank him for teaching us that word! That is the actual principle of the American government.

In all countries of the world, struggles take place for human rights. But in all countries there is a class who desire a privilege for themselves adverse to the rights of mankind: they are commonly richer and abler-minded than the majority of men; they can act in concert. Between them and mankind there is a struggle. The quarrel takes various forms. The contest has been going on for a long time in Europe. There, it is between the aristocracy of birth, and the aristocracy of wealth; for there it is not money, but birth, that makes noble. In this struggle the aristocracy of birth is gradually giving way to the aristocracy of gold. A long and brilliant rent-roll makes up for a short and obscure pedigree.

In that great movement for human freedom which has lasted a thousand years, the city has generally represented Right in its conflict with Might. So, in the middle ages, the city, the home of the trader, of the mechanic, of the intelligent man, was democratic. There freedom got organized in guilds of craftsmen. But the country was the home of the noble and his vassals, the haughty, the ignorant, and the servile. Then the country was aristocratic. It was so in the great struggles between the king and the people in England and France, in Italy and Holland.

In America there is no nobility of birth--it was the people that came over, not monarchy, not aristocracy; they did not emigrate. The son of Guy Fawkes and the son of Charlemagne are on the same level. I know in Boston some of the descendants of Henri Quatre, the greatest king of France. I know also descendants of Thomas Wentworth, "the great Earl of Strafford;" and yet they are now obscure and humble men, although of famous birth. I do not say it should not be so; but such is the fact. Here the controversy is not between distinguished birth and money; it is between money on the one hand, and men on the other; between capital and labor; between usurped privilege and natural right. Here, the cities, as the seat of wealth, are aristocratic; the country, as the seat of labor, is democratic. We may see this in Boston. Almost all the journals in the city are opposed to a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people. Take an example from the free soil movement, which, so far as it goes, is democratic. I am told that of the twenty-one journals in Massachusetts that call themselves "democratic," eighteen favor the free soil movement, more or less; and that the three which do not are all in the cities. The country favors the temperance movement, one of the most democratic of all; for rum is to the aristocracy of gold, what the sword once was to the aristocracy of blood; the castles of the baron, and the rum-shops of the capitalist, are alike fortresses adverse to the welfare of mankind. The temperance movement finds little favor in the cities.

In the country he who works with manly hands is held in esteem; in the city, in contempt. Here laboring men have no political influence, and little confidence in themselves. They have been accustomed to do as they were told,--to do as their "masters" bid.

I call a man a Tory who, for himself or for others, seeks a privilege adverse to the rights of mankind; who puts the accidents of men before the substance of manhood. I may safely say the cities, in the main, are Tory towns; that Boston, in this sense, is a Tory town. They are so, just as in the middle ages the cities were on the other side. This is unavoidable in our form of civilization just now. Accordingly, in all the great cities of the North, slavery is in the ascendant: but, as soon as we get off the pavement, we come upon different ideas; freedom culminates and rises to the meridian.

In America the controlling class in general are superior to the majority in money, in consequent social standing, in energy, in practical political skill, and in intellectual development; in virtue of these qualities, they are the controlling class. But in general they are inferior to the majority of men in justice, in general humanity, and in religion,--in piety and goodness. Respectability is put before Right; Law before Justice; Money before God. With them religion is compliance with a public hearsay and public custom; it is all of religion, but piety and goodness; its chief sacrament is bodily presence in a meeting-house; its only sacrifice, a pew-tax. I know there are exceptions, and honor them all the more for being so very exceptional: they are only enough to show the rule.

In the main, this controlling class governs the land by two instruments: the first is the Public Law; the next is Public Opinion. The law is what was once public opinion, or thought to be; is fixed, written, and supposed to be understood by somebody. Public opinion is not written, and not fixed; but the opinion of the controlling class overrides and interprets the law,--bids or forbids its execution. Public opinion can make or unmake a law; interpret as it chooses, and enforce or forbid its execution as it pleases.

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Such being the case, and such being the chief transient national desire just now, the controlling class consider the State as a machine to help them make money. A great politician, it is said, once laid down this rule,--"Take care of the rich, and the rich will take care of the poor." Perhaps he did not say that, though he did say that "The great object of government is the protection of property at home, and respect and renown abroad." Such being the case, laws are made accordingly, and institutions are modified accordingly. Let me give an example. In all the towns of New England, town-money is raised by taxes on all the people, and on all the property. The rich man is taxed according to his riches, and the poor man according to his poverty. But the national money is raised by taxation not in proportion to a man's wealth. A bachelor in New England, with a million dollars, pays a much smaller national tax than a carpenter who has no money at all, but only ten children, the poor man's blessing. The mechanic, with a family of twelve, pays more taxes than the Southern planter owning a tract of land as wide as the town of Worcester, with fifteen hundred slaves to till it. This, I say, is not an accident. It is the work of politicians, who know what they are about, and think a blunder is worse than a sin; and, sin as they may, they do not commit such blunders as that.

This controlling class, with their dependents, their vassals, lay and clerical--and they have lay as well as clerical vassals, and more numerous, if less subservient--keep up the institution of slavery. Two hundred years ago, that was the worst institution of Europe. Our fathers, breaking with feudal institutions in general, did not break with this: they brought it over here. But when the nation, aroused for its hour of trial, rose up to its great Act of Prayer, and prayed the Declaration of Independence, all the nation said "Amen" to the great American idea therein set forth. Every Northern State reaffirms the doctrine that "All men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." But in spite of this, and of the consciousness that it is true, while the Northern States have cast out this institution, the Southern States have kept it. The nation has adopted, extended, and fostered it. This has been done, notwithstanding the expectation of the people in 1787 that it would soon end. It has been done against the design of the Constitution, which was "to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty;" against the idea of America, that "All men have an equal and unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" against all religion, all humanity, all right, ay, and against the conscience of a majority of the people.

Well, a law was passed last September, that would have been atrocious two hundred years ago: you all know it. I have no words to describe it by. For the last two hundred years, the English race has not invented an adjective adequate to describe it. The English language is used up and broken down by any attempt to describe it. That law was not the desire of the people; and, could the nation have been polled North and South, three fourths would have said "No!" to the passage of that law. It was not passed to obtain the value of the slaves escaped, for in seven months twenty slaves have not been returned! It was not a measure looking to legal results, but it was a political measure, looking to political results: what those results will be we shall see in due time.

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In America the controlling class is divided into two great parties: one is the Slave Power in the States of the South; the other is the Money Power in the cities of the North. There are exceptional men in both divisions--men that own slaves, and yet love freedom and hate slavery. There are rich men in Northern cities who do the same; all honor to them. But in general it is not so; nay, it is quite otherwise. They are hostile to the great idea of America. Let me speak with the nicety of theological speech. These two divisions are two "Persons" in one "Power;" there is only one "Nature" in both, one "Will." If not the same nature, it is a like nature: Homoi-ousia, if not Homo-ousia! The Fugitive Slave Law was the act of the two "Persons," representing the same "Nature," and the same "Will." It was the result of a union of the Slave Power of the South with the Money Power of the North: the Philistines and the Hebrews ploughed with the same heifer.

There is sometimes an excuse or a palliation for a wicked deed. There was something like one for the "Gag Law," the "Alien and Sedition Law," although there is no valid excuse for either of these laws, none to screen their author from deserved reproach. There is no excuse for the Fugitive Slave Law; there was no occasion for it.

You all know how it was brought about; you remember the speech of Mr. Webster on the 7th of March, 1850, a day set apart for the blessed Martyrs, Saints Perpetua and Felicitas. We all know who was the author of that law. It is Mr. Webster's Fugitive Slave Law! It was his "thunder," unquestioned and unquestionable. You know what a rapid change was wrought in the public opinion of the controlling classes, soon after its passage. First the leading whigs went over. I will not say they changed their principles, God knows, not I, what principles they have, I will only say they altered their "resolutions," and ate their own words. True, the whigs have not all gone over. There are a few who still cling to the old Whig-tree, after it has been shaken and shaken, and thrashed and thrashed, and brushed and brushed, by politicians, as apple-trees in autumn. There are still a few little apples left, small and withered no doubt, and not daring to show their dishonored heads just now, but still containing some precious seeds that may do service by and by. Whig journal after journal went over; politician after politician "caved in" and collapsed. At the sounding of the rams' horns of slavery, how quick the Whig Jericho went down! Its fortresses of paper resolutions rolled up and blew away. Of course, men changed only after "logical conviction." Of course, nobody expected a "reward" for the change, at least only in the world to come. Were they not all Christians? True, on the 17th of June last, seventy-five years after the battle of Bunker Hill, Mr. Webster said in the Senate, that if the North should vote for the Fugitive Slave Bill, a Tariff was expected. But that was of no moment, no more than worldly riches to "the elect." Of course, a man has a right to change his opinions every ten minutes, if he has a good and sufficient reason. Of course, these men expected no offices under this or any future President! But presently the Fugitive Slave Law became a Whig doctrine, a test of party fidelity and fitness for office!

You all remember the "Union" meeting in Boston. On that occasion, democrats "of the worst kind" suddenly became "respectable." The very democratic prince of devils was thought to be as good a "gentleman" as any in the city.

It was curious to see the effect of the Fugitive Slave Law on the democratic party. Democrat after democrat "caved in;" journal after journal went over; horse, foot, and dragoons, they went over. The Democratic party North, and American Slavery South, have long been accustomed to accommodate themselves with the same nag after the old fashion of "ride and tye." In the cities, democrats went over in tribes; entire Democratic Zabulons and Nephthalims, whole Galilees of Democratic Gentiles, all at once saw great Whig light; and to them that sat in the shadow of Freedom, Slavery sprung up.

That portion of the Whig party which did not submit, became as meek, ay, became meeker even than the beast which the old prophet in the fable is alleged to have ridden; for, though beaten again and again,--because alarmed at seeing the angel of Freedom that bars the way before the great Whig Balaam, who has been bidden by his master to go forth and curse the people of the Lord,--it dares not open its mouth and say, "What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?"

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But when such a law is hostile to the feelings of a majority of the people, to their conscience and their religion, how shall we get the law executed? That is a hard matter. In Russia and in Austria it would be very easy. Russia has an army five hundred or eight hundred thousand strong; and that army is ready. But here there is no such army. True, the President asked Congress to give him greater power, and the answer came from the Slave party South, not from the Money party North, "No! you have more now than you know how to use." Failing in this attempt, what was to be done that the law might be executed? Two things must be done: A false idea must persuade the people to allow it to be done; Base men must be found to do it. A word upon each point.

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I. The false idea is set on foot, that the people are morally bound to obey any law which is made until it is repealed. General Haynau wrote a letter, not long ago, to the subalterns in the Austrian army, and thus quoth he: "You are bound to obey the law. It is none of your business whether the law is constitutional or not; that is our affair." So went it with our officers here. We are told that there is "no such thing as a higher law," "no rule of conduct better than that enacted by the law of the land." Conscience is only to tell you to keep the statutes. Religion consists in "fearing God and serving the king." You are told that religion bids you to "fear God and keep the commandments," no matter what these commandments may be. No matter whether it be King Ahab, or King Peter the Cruel: you are told,--"Mr. Republican, what right have you to question the constitutionality or justice of any thing? Your business is to keep the law." Religion is a very excellent thing, quotes Mr. Webster, except when it interferes in politics; then it makes men mad.

It is instructive to see the different relations which religion has sustained to law, at different periods of the world's history. At some other time I may dwell more at length upon this; now I will say but one word. At the beginning, religion takes precedence of law. Before there is any human government, man bows himself to the Source of law, and accepts his rule of conduct from his God. By and by, some more definite rule is needed, and wise men make human laws; but they pretend to derive these from a divine source. All the primitive lawgivers, Moses, Minos, Zaleucus, Numa, and the rest, speak in the name of God. For a long time, law comes up to religion for aid and counsel. At length law and religion, both imperfect, are well established in society, religion being the elder sister; both act as guardians of mankind. Institution after institution rises up, all of them baptized by religion and confirmed by law, taking the sacrament from the hands of each. At length it comes to pass that law seeks to turn religion out of doors. Politicians, intoxicated with ambition, giddy with power, and sometimes also drunk with strong drink, make a statute which outrages all the dictates of humanity, and then insist that it is the duty of sober men to renounce religion for the sake of keeping the wicked statute of the politicians. All tyrants have done so!

In the North, the majority of men think that the law of man is subordinate to religion--the statutes of man beneath the law of God; that as ethics, personal morals, are amenable to conscience, so politics, national morals, are amenable to the same conscience; and that religion has much to do with national as with individual life. Depend upon it, that idea is the safeguard of the State and of the law. It will preserve it, purify it, and keep it; but it will scourge every wicked law out of the temple of justice with iron whips, if need be. Depend upon it, when we lose our hold of that idea, all hope of order is gone. But there is no danger; we are pretty well persuaded, that the law of God is a little greater than the statute of an accidental president unintentionally chosen for four years. When we think otherwise, we may count our case hopeless, and give up all.

But with the controlling class of men it is not so. They tell us that we must keep any law, constitutional or not, legal or not, just or unjust: first, that we must submit passively, and let the government execute it; next, we must actively obey it, and with alacrity when called upon to execute it ourselves. This doctrine is the theory advanced in most of the newspapers of Boston. It is preached in some of the pulpits, though, thank God! not in all.

This doctrine appears in the charge of the Judge of the Circuit Court to the grand jury.[27] I believe that judge to be a good and excellent and honorable man; I never heard a word to the contrary, and I am glad to think that it is so.[28] I have to deal only with his opinions; not with his theoretic doctrines of law, of which latter I profess to know nothing; but with the theoretic doctrines of morality he lays down. Of morality I do profess to know something.

He says some excellent things in his charge, which I am glad were said. He is modest in some places, and moderate in others. He does not think that a dozen black men taking a fugitive out of court are guilty of "levying war," and therefore should be hanged, drawn, and quartered, if you can catch them. All honor to his justice. He does not say, as the Secretary of State, that we must suppress discussion and stop agitation. He says we may agitate as much as we have a mind to; may not only speak against a law, but may declaim against it, which is to speak strongly. I thank the judge for this respect for the Constitution. But with regard to the higher and lower law, he has some peculiar opinions. He supposes a case: that the people ask him, "Which shall we obey, the law of man or the law of God?" He says, "I answer, obey both. The incompatibility which the question assumes does not exist."

So, then, here is a great general rule, that between the "law of man" and the "will of God" there is no incompatibility, and we must "obey both." Now let us see how this rule will work.

If I am rightly informed, King Ahab made a law that all the Hebrews should serve Baal, and it was the will of God that they should serve the Lord.--According to this rule of the judge, they must "obey both." But if they served Baal, they could not serve the Lord. In such a case, "what is to be done?"--We are told that Elijah gathered the prophets together; "and he came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye? If the Lord be God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him." Our modern prophet says, "Obey both. The incompatibility which the question assumes does not exist." Such is the difference between Judge Elijah and Judge Peleg.

Let us see how this rule will work in other cases; how you can make a compromise between two opposite doctrines. The king of Egypt commanded the Hebrew nurses, "When you do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, if it be a son ye shall kill him." I suppose it is plain to the Judge of the Circuit Court that this kind of murder, killing the new-born infants, is against "the will of God;" but it is a matter of record that it was according to "the law of man." Suppose the Hebrew nurses had come to ask Judge Sprague for his advice. He must have said, "Obey both!" His rule is a universal one.

Another decree was once made as it is said, in the Old Testament, that no man should ask any petition of any God for thirty days, save of the king, on penalty of being cast into the den of lions. Suppose Daniel--I mean the old Daniel, the prophet--should have asked him, What is to be done? Should he pray to Darius or pray to God? "Obey both!" would be the answer. But he cannot, for he is forbid to pray to God. We know what Daniel did do.

The elders and scribes of Jerusalem commanded the Christians not to speak or to teach at all in the name of Jesus; but Peter and John asked those functionaries, "Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye." Our judge must have said, There is no "incompatibility;" "obey both!" What "a comfortable Scripture" this would have been to poor John Bunyan! What a great ethical doctrine to St. Paul! He did not know such Christianity as that. Before this time a certain man had said, "No man can serve two masters." But there was one person who made the attempt, and he also is eminent in history. Here was "the will of God," to do to others as you would have others do to you: "Love thy neighbor as thyself." Here is the record of "the law of man:" "Now both the chief priests and the Pharisees had given a commandment, that, if any man knew where he [Jesus] were, he should show it that they might take him." Judas, it seems, determined to "obey both,"--"the law of man" and "the will of God."--So he sat with Jesus at the Last Supper, dipped his hand in the same dish, and took a morsel from the hand of Christ, given him in token of love. All this he did to obey "the will of God." Then he went and informed the Commissioner or Marshal where Jesus was. This he did to obey "the law of man." Then he came back, and found Christ,--the agony all over, the bloody sweat wiped off from his brow, presently to bleed again,--the Angel of Strength there with him to comfort him. He was arousing his sleeping disciples for the last time, and was telling them, "Pray, lest ye enter into temptation."--Judas came and gave him a kiss. To the eleven it seemed the friendly kiss, obeying "the will of God." To the Marshal it also seemed a friendly kiss,--obeying "the law of man." So, in the same act, he obeys "the law of God" and "the will of man," and there is no "incompatibility!"

Of old it was said, "Thou canst not serve God and mammon." He that said it, has been thought to know something of morals,--something of religion.

Till the fugitive slave law was passed, we did not know what a great saint Iscariot was. I think there ought to be a chapel for him, and a day set apart in the calendar. Let him have his chapel in the navy-yard at Washington. He has got a priest there already. And for a day in the calendar--set apart for all time the seventh of March!

Let us look at some other things in that Judge's address to the grand jury. "Unjust and oppressive laws may indeed be passed by human government. But if infinite and inscrutable Wisdom permits political society ... to establish such laws, may not the same Wisdom permit and require individuals ... to obey them?" Ask the prophets in such a case, if they would have felt themselves permitted and required to obey them! Ask the men who were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection; who had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment; who were stoned and sawn asunder; who were slain with the sword; who wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins, destitute, afflicted, and tormented, of whom the world was not worthy! Ask the apostles, who thanked God they were counted worthy to suffer shame in the name of Christ! Ask Paul, who was eight times publicly beaten, thrice shipwrecked; and in perils of waters, of robbers, of the heathen, of false brethren--that worst of all peril! Nay, ask Christ; let the Crucified reply,--whether, when a wicked law is made, and we are commanded to keep it, God means we should! Ask the men who, with their ocean-wearied feet, consecrated the rock of Plymouth forever! Ask the patriots of the Revolution! What do they say? I will not give the answer. Even the martyred Jesuits say No. Who is it that says Yes? Judas and the Judge. Let them go--each "to his own place." Let me say no more of them.

This attempt to keep the people down by false doctrine, is no new thing. But to say that there is no law higher than what the State can make, is practical atheism. It is not a denial of God in his person; that is only speculative atheism. It is a denial of the functions and attributes of God; that is real atheism. If there is no God to make a law for me, then there is no God for me.