The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1846-09-10
Moral and Legal Suasion.
From the Christian Citizen.

Moral and Legal Suaslon.
From the Christian Citizen.
All laws are either human or divine; and he
that is guilty of breaking law, is in the sight
of man, or God, or both, criminal it needs
TO argument to convince us of this Att pres
ent we have only to do with the former
Laws are established for the good order, pro-
lection, and maintenance Of society. In the
simplest state in which community is ever
known to exist, there must be, and is some
code of law, by which the subjects assent to
be governed and from the highest to the
most complicated system Of government, the
principle is universally admitted, that the laws
are for the good Of the governed. This is the
very foundation of government and law
Men band themselves together in commune
ties, in towns, cities and countries, and for
the welfare Of the whole, agree what shall be
lawful, and what unlawful; what shall be the
penalty for crime, and how it shall be impoS-
ed, by compact which, if not written, new
ertheless exists, wherever man consents to
dwell among his fellows. Thus every man
has direct interest not only in the welfare
and fair usage OF every other man in the COM
munity, but in the community itself. For the
same obligation that binds him, imposes upon
them, individually and collectively, the duty
OF protecting him against all wrong. Now,
then, we have but to take a view OF society
and see how it manages. Let us take our
town, for we need 90 no farther; and while
we briefly examine its machinery for the de-
lection and punishment of crime, and the
causes which operate to make each man so
secure in his person and property. Let us
see If there is any reason why the greatest
criminal among u.s. the man that breeds vice
and raises every species Of crime and deprav-
ity in nicely contrived hot-bed, shall be a
subject only for the lectures Of the moral
suasionist, while the man into whose heart he
has put, by the influence of the liquor he sells
him, all the vilest propensities; in whose
breast he has excited the most unhalowed
passions, and whose intellect he has robbed
Of every ray of intelligence, must be hustled
off to jail, without word Of sympathy or tear
of pity.
We are strong believer in moral suasion,
but we also believe in iustice-not such JUS
tice as her gilded wooden majesty, with ban
daged eyes, that stands upon the court house,
is the emblem of; but of a justice that is not
b|indfold; justice that can see what she is
about, and weigh the need of the criminal,
not in proportion to what he, himself, thinks
is due to his crime; but in proportion to the
wrong he has really done community.
We have said that every man that breaks
the law is a criminal; is it not so ? Well,
then, if it is, who shall define and demonstrate
to what class of criminals legal suasion or NOR
al suasion shall be applied. 1t strikes us that
when moral suasion has been used repeated
ly, and in vain, to reform the course Of any
man who is habtual violator of the law, that
1t is not only right, but that it is the positive
duty of every man, who has the true welfare
OF the community at heart, to resort to those
more compulsatory and penal measures that
the law provides; else are we each of us re-
sponsible for the wrong that he does.
We have in Worcester society for the
detection of horse thieves, and another for
the protection offruit. Let aman be caught in
the act of stealing horse, and he who should
propose to let him depart, and to reform him
by moral suasion, SO that he would steal no
more horses, would make himself the laugh
ing stock Of the town and the same thing
would happen if the man was detected in
robbing an orchard Or hen roost. Yet the
man who steals an occasional horse, or robs a
garden Or poultry yard, commits not 1.-THE
OF the wrong against society as he who daily
and hourly is engaged in alluring his brother
men to their own destruction, by spreading
Cuo bSAOiV tHCul HIS dCCuTSCu uIllAS, anu
commenting them to their lips. Then why
this fear of resorting to the law, for the pow
err to put down that which moral suasion can
not do? The law was made for the protec-
tlon of the good, and the punishment of the
bad How long shall feeble half score of
men, who deal in ruin, and flch the money
from the pockets of the poor inebriate, that
should go for the support of his wife and neg
lnptpU HttIp nunc-1vbo tl,o 10
their own destruction, and allure the unthink-
ing into the mazes of vice, continue to defy
the united and almost unanimous voice of this
community. We are glad to think that the
time is short-that the decree will speedily 90
forth, that in this place, at least, the rum traf
tic must and shall cease.
Not two years have gone by since foul
and most cruel murder was committed in our
very midst, upon the person of an mfirm and
decrepid man, by one in the vigor of youth,
who is now suffering the penalty Of his crime,
doomed to life of soclusion and labor in the
CharleStown State Prison. He suffers; but
the man who sold him the liquor that melted
him to do the deed, walks about the streets
and takes honest men by the hand. Is he
any the less culpable in the sight of God than
the other. Both have broken the laws, but
one suffers and the other escapes Had we,
who advocate moral suasion, but done our
whole duty, and seen that the law which was
made to protect us against occurrences so
shocking to humanity, was enforced, one at
least Of our townsnen, who, however low his
condition, was still a man, would not now be
sleeping in the silent grave, and another re-
plning in the feloa's cell A part of the sin
lies with US, unless we have dc3e what we
could for the maintenance Of the laws. Let