The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1868-09-16
Equality Before the Law.

government Dy MAN Is ufgcu ny e"0
people on the other Despotism is the nat
aral drift of the tirst-Equality before the
Law the necessary result of the second.
Equality before the Law reconciles all races
of man, introduces higher law of civiliza-
ton by which Progress is, as it were, driven
before it. and drawn after it and kept stead
lily and tremendously ut work within its
own orbit. .,e-- ,. -... ..z
Law, Mental, Moral and Material must
be obeyed or trouble comes. The laws of
thought must be discovered before we can
science OF logic; the laws ofright
action before we can build science Of
ethics; the law of physics before we can
erect science of mechanics or any other
science based upon material nature. Error
consists in Ignorance of law and want OF
conformity to it; crime and sin consist in
knowing the law and wilfully disobeying it.
Trouble, discard, anarchy, wars and rcyolu-
tions all follow violated law.
There is science of government as we'll
as of mechanics or physics. 1t is, like all
other sciences, built upon facts grouped &C.
cording to law, and the fundamental law of
government is equality of rights between all
the creatures of the earth created in the
image of God. It has been said that the
perfection of government is no government
at allan absolute truth, but not yet quite
realized upon the earth. But when the
world has arrived at such stage OF civiliza-
ton and enlightenment as to require no gov
eminent at all, it will only have attained to
a complete realization of the political prin-
ciple of equality before the law. At present
equality before the law is the grand ideal in
the minds of all the leading progressive
statesman in the world For centuries there
has heen something known as equality be-
fore the law, and law hooks written thou
sand years since talk of it. but the definition
of law thousand years ago and the defini-
ton of law to day are two entirely different
things. Law, or something called law, once
protected shareholders, and in the name of
law the most Infamous crimes were perpe-
trated. By law men were burned at the
stake, were starved to death in dungeons,
were crushed to death by internal machines,
were hung at the cross roads for the birds of
the air to feed upon their flesh. BY law
they we're prosecuted for every form Of reli
gious and political faith. What crime is
there that has not been perpetrated in the
name of law? Equality before the law, as
it was understood by Greeks and Romans
by Jews and Gentiles, by christians and bar
barians, a thousand years ago we desire to be
forever protected from. Equality before the
law as Jefferson Davis and Alex. H. Stephens
proclaimed it, when they declared that
slavery should be the corner stone of the Con-
federacy, we shall wage eternal war against.
We want it not. 1t was the law of the de-
spot over the cringing slave; it was the law
of the rich over the poor; the conqueror over
the conquered the strong over the weak !;
the well fed over the hungry and starving.
Christian justice and humanity had no abode
in it. True we have sometimes heard that
christianity was in close alliance with it, but
in those parts of the world where that kind
of christianity prevailed what is the condi-
tion of the masses to-day9 Austria, Spain.
Portugal and Mexico through their forms of
government answer the question.
The value of the political doctrine of
equality before the law we see, therefore, de-
ponds very much upon what we mean by
law and who is the law giver. The will of
one man may be law as long as he can en-
force it, and he himself may be very zeal
Gus disciple of the doctrine of equality be-
fore tile law lie has himself made; but let
another one grasp the law-making power
away from him and he may he the first one
to pronounce it false in theory and vicious
in practice. The fact, therefore, that equal
ity before the law is an old idea does not in
the least detract from its value now. The
sermon TN the Mount is much older than
the Declaration of Indepcndence-but who
would undervalue it on account of its age?
Because the teachings of Christ have been
distorted, misapplied, and made the shelter
for all kinds of abuse and error, it is no
reason why they should not be the guide of
moral action still, if, in themselves, they
prove the most perfect known to man.
christianity" says great writer, " is the
SUN, and doctrines and creeds are but clouds
that obscure the exceeding brightness of his
rays"
Equality before the law is but a great prin-
ciple of Christianity-a ray of light and
heat from the glorious orb of all moral light
and heat and attraction. All the civilized
nations of the earth have proclaimed it and
not one lived up to it. A few have been al
lowed to make the law, few allowed to in
terpret it, a few allowed to execute it and
the great masses forced to obey. Of course
such equality before the law the masses have
learn to repudiate, and insist that no law is
binding in the making of which they have
had not voice themselves. 1t is in the lao
making power, therefore, that the definition
of law has shifted and changed ground so
often. In these days, before We ask the def
milton of law and our moral and legal obli-
CATION to obey it. we want to know who
made it, and whether it came from the whole
people without regard to race, color or con-
dition. The modern theory of the law is