The republic., 1851-08-14
THE REPUBLIC.
From The Boston Transcript
The Peace and Dignity or the Common.
yveaI4h.-NO. xxxvlii

stand it, History instructs US that this love of re-
lgious liberty, compound sentiment in the breast
OF man, made up OF the clearest Of right and
the highest conviction of duty, is able to look the
sternest despotism in the face, and with means ap-
parently most inadequate, 10 shake principalities
and powers. II the hand of power be laid upon it,
this only seems to augment its force and elasticity,
and to cause its action to be more formidable and
terrible. Human invention has devised nothing,
human power has compassed nothing, that can pos
aibly restrain it whenit breaks forth Nothing can
stop II but to give way to it, nothing check il
but indulgence. 1t loses it's power only when it
gains its object"
Now, there IS nothing more true in Holy
Writ than these forcible words OF Mr. Web
ster's. They set forth the power of conscience
in' energetic language. The very same thing
was done by heather philosophers before the
Christian religion was born. The very same
sentiments may be found in the fifth book Of
Aristotle's Ethics. Far more applicable to the
pressing occasions of the Free-soil gentlemen
is very fine passage from Cicero, yet how
astonshed he would have been had he been
assured that some eighteen centuries after he
should be dead his words would be employed
TO justify the right Of erery indipiduaI to Ooer-
ride The Ia,c Of the land upon the back Of his
o,cn individual conscience, holoeUer unbroken
and giuen 10 stumbling that conscience might
be. The passage to which refer is certainly
one of preeminent elegance and power.
"Est quidem vera lex, recta ratio, nature con-
gruens, diflusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna;
qun vocet ad offcium jubendo, vetando fraude
delerreat; qua tamen neque probus frustra jubct
autvetat, nee improbus jubendo aut vetando mo-
vet. Huic legi nee obrogari fas est, neque dero-
gari ex hnc aliquid licet, neque tota abrogari
potest; nee vero aut per senatum, aut per pop
ulum solvi hac lege possumus; neque est qu@ren-
dus explanator, aut interpres elus alius nee crit
ALA lex Rom@, ALA Athenis; ALA nunc, ALA post
nae; sed ct omnes gentes ct olnnl tempore una lex,
ct semplterna, ct immutabilis continebit; unusque
crit communis quasi magister ct imperator om-
mum Deus, lille legis hujus inventor, disceptator,
lator; cui qui non parebt, ipse sc fugiet, &C ma
turam hominis aspernatus, hoe ipso luet maximas
p0nas, etiam 81 cetera supplicia, que putantur,
effugerit - Cic de Rfpub,, Lib. H., sec. IT.
Perhaps no passage can be cited in which
the "higher la,o"-the supremacy of con-
science-is more powerfully presented. But no
mortal, not even Richard Hooker, was ever
greater stickler for obedience to the laws of the
land than this great Roman statesman and phi
losopher He never meant TO convey the mon
strous and ridiculous idea that such of the citl-
zens OF the Roman commonwealth as would
plead their scrupes of conscience were to be
excused from obeyng the laws, or any one of
those laws-far less that any number of citizens
might combine to resist or disobey the estab-
lished laws of the Roman republic, in obedience
to higher lalc which they professed to find
written on their consclences.
If this theory amount to any thing for the
practical occasions Of man in civil society, it
amounts to this, that every mans conscience
affords him prompt and an infallible test Of
right and wrong. The absurdity of this is very
manifest and very perfect Abolitionists, upon
this theory, say that all shareholders are pirates
and manstealers; and shareholders firmly be-
lleve that very large proportion Of the aboli-
tlonists and -soilers, lay and clerical, are
liars and hypocrites, actuated, In great num-
Der of instances, by no other or higher motive
than morbid thirst for notoriety Both par
ties appeal to their consciences. 1t hence fol-
lows, infallibly, as both cannot be right, that
conscience, in the present state of society, can
not be a certain test, and of such universal ap-
plication, as it has been affirmed to be by the
advocates of the "higher laao.'
Were il otherwise mems consciences would
wellnigh drive the lawyers out of court; for it
would be impossible for any two men to differ
as to right and wrong. Conscience would be
court, jury, and advocate, and the millennium
would take us by surprise. For, if any two
men could draw different conclusions by the
light Of their respective consciences from the
very same facts, there would be an end of this
delightful theory Of the "higher latc."
The consciences of men, like their razors, do
certainly acquire wiry edge unless constant
attention is bestowed upon their condition, from
day to day. According to the books or the tradi-
tons of almost every nation of the earth, there
was primitive age in which the consciences
Of mankind were more reliable, and human
laws less indispensable than in after times. The
origin of laws is very simply set forth in the
following passage from Tacitus:
''Vetuatissimi mortalium, nulla adhuc mala libi-
dine sine probro, scelere, eoque sine poana aut
ercitionibus agebant; neque pramiis opus erat,
cum honesta suopte ingenio peterentur ct, ubi
nihil contra morern cuperent nihi per metum veta-
bantur. AT postquam exui mqualitas, ct pro
destia pudore ambito ct Wis incedebat; prove
mere domina tones; multosque apud populos eter-
mum mansere. Quidam statim, aut postquam
regum pertesum, leges mauerunt. Hn primo,
rudibus bominum animis, simplices Grant," sc.
Annal lib. 3, sec. &c.
The most ample recognition of the law of
God-of Reason-of Nature-lessens not at all
the necessity of human laws. Says the ''judi-
cious Hooker" 'For although even here like
wise the laws of nature and reason be of ne
cessary use, yet somewhat over and besides
them is necessary, namely, human and positive
law, together with that law which is of COM
merce between grand societies, the law of ma
cause the law Of God hath likewise said, Let
every soul be subject to the higher powers.
The public power of all societies is above every
soul contained in the same societies. And the
principal use of that power is to give laws unto
all that are under it; which laws in such case
we must obey unless there be reason showed
which may necessarily enforce that the law of
reason or of God doth enjoin the contrary, be-
cause, except our own private and but probable
resolutions be by the law of public determine
tions overruled, we take away all possibility
of sociable life in the world" Ec. UoL. book L.,
sec. l6.
We cannot too forcby impress those words,
already quoted from Hooker. upon the whole
community:
"Neither wish we that men should do any thing
which in their hearts they persuaded they ought
not TO do but This persuasion, say, ought TO be
fully settled in their hearts, that in litigous and
controverted causes of such quality, the tciH Of God
is TO haze them do tuhdtsoeuer The sentence of Judicial
and final decision shall determine yea, though it
their private opinion 10 s,cer,e utterly from
that tohich is right"
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