Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-05-08
Governed too Mnch.

Since governments and nations arose
among men, there have been strenuous
efforts made in all legislative assemblies
to create and sustain public and private
virtue, by means of the supreme power
of the State, and the machinery of the
criminal law. All branches of morali
ty, and social, domestic and private pu-
rity, as well as the daily intercourse OF
the business world, have, at one time or
another, been regulated by the law-mak-
ing power In the early history of civil
lization, the criminal jurisprudence of
nations only sought to supplement natu-
raj law and revealed religion. Those
offences against morality and personal
security or happiness, which were term
ed crimes, nadLG IN SC, were denounced
by a few Just and discriminating penal
ties No Credit MObilier or railroad in
vestigations were ever heard of in legis-
lative halls, and emotional insanity had
not been invented as an excuse to save
criminals from justice.
Now there are more complications in
the relations of men to society, and we
have become prone to correct every evil
by the simple force of an ordinance or
enactment. The legislation of Congress
and the State has been exhausted in the
creation of crimes, and the imposition
of penalties upon what had been and
still is regarded as innocent by large
portion of community, until the moral
sense of the people has become blunted,
and the criminal law is no longer regard
ed as criterion of what is right and
wrong, and but few men are willing to
end the discussion of a question of poll
cy, when they find it unlawful. In
short, we are governed too much We
have destroyed our respect for law by
the imposition of penalties unjustly, and
have weakened the supreme power of
the State by multitude of trivial enact
ments.
The large number of congressional
and legislative Investigations into cor
rupt and mercenary combinations of
capitalists and politicians, is already
showing the same evil tendency as in the
passing of unnecessary criminal laws. No
confidence is felt by the general public
that rascality is going to be punished,
or corruption laid open to public gaze
by an investigating committee. No char
acter shines brighter by reason OF IA
vorable report. The one word, ''white-
wash" destroys the whole effect of an
exoneration from charges which would
once ruin a man for all time, and an
official condemnation makes its subject
a martyr, and brings to his support ele-
ments of strangth which he could never
have had if he had remained unsuspect-
ed. We who have seen Cakes Ames re-
tain his seat in Congress through the
Credit Mobilier investigation, and be fe-
ted at North Easton, on returning to
Massachusetts, after the genius OF Po-
land and his committee had spent its
whole force in showing his character to
the world, in Fan elaborate report, are
all the more inclined to put what we
have where lit will do the most good.
SO it is, legislative measures are not the
best educators in the school of morality.
We want fewer enactments and more
of the spirit of Christianity. Lessons
and examples are more powerful than
unnecessary laws in preventing crime,
and honesty is not fostered under the
threat of penal statutes.
We have observed with alarm this mania
for legislative remedies in all cases, and
seen it gradually taking possession of all
the smaller municipal bodies in our State
and nation. The ease, safety and COM
fort of the future inmates of our State
Insane Asylum has been endangered by
legislative intermeddling the curiosity
of multitude has been excited by an
expose of the business affairs of a pros
porous railroad corporation, and the pri-
vate family affairs of its individual mem
bers paraded before learned committee,
least perchance a Judge of some Court
has dined in their family and chatted
with its lady members; or prosperous
lawyer received his fee for services rem
dered and been comp,imented with
free ride to Montpelier, to see the as
rembled wisdom of the State, proscrib-
ing its rules of civil conduct, which he
is to'administer to the people as an of
ficer of our Courts of Justice
We may come nearer home for an ex-
ample of the heroic treatment which is
working such dire results in promoting
dishonesty and corruption. This village
has advertised that they are to wipe out
all nepotism and favoritism by an ordin-
ance, wherein they ordain that in the
future they will elect for village trustee
no man that is fit for highway surveyor,
and that an election to that office shall
so contaminate all the relatives of any
trustee to the fourth degree of affinity
or consanguinity so that they too shall
not have the requisite virtue to be ap-
pointed superintendent of streets and
sidewalks
Now we appeal to the people, as the
source of all political power, that this
mania for undue legislation shall be cur
tailed, that cultivation of private vir-
tue, social morality and the Christian
graces, shall bring back the wavward.
and prevent those that are now upright
from strayiag that a respect for law be
restored by making law respectable;
that men be no longer tempted to betray
trusts by the whitewash of committees
or the sympathy of the public when the
committee Is impartial, and that in all
places of honor, trust and profit we may
have the @tittest and best mau possible
for the place, irrespective of whether
he is related within the fourth degree of
affinity or consanguinity to any other
person in authority.
The BTRNINf. ar Cor uMpTA EonoroI