New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-06-24

if State Of the Union deemed law
contrary to the common constitution such
State could annul the operation OF that
law within its jurisdiction.
These doctrines are in effect the same.
They reserve to one or more individuals
or communities in nation the right to
nullify, as to himself or to themselves,
a law binding upon others though en-
acted with all the formalities prescribed
by the constitutional compact If the
courts decide that an act is legal, which
may not.be in accord with the individual
standard of morality, the crime of immor-
atty must be answered by the tribunal, it
does not attach to the individual who has
agreed to remit his doubts of legality to an
agreed tribunal. Under this principle the
American people required all men to obey
even the fugitive slave law, not that it did
not conflict with the sense Of right Of
many, but because it was an act passed
under the compact of the constitution,
the pound of flesh, it may be, nominated
in the bond. But the American people
did not raise the seal off the bond, and
while the fugitive law was abhorrent to
| thousands, the doctrine that every man
was law unto himself had few advocates.
The opponents of the law repealed it in
summary and sufficient manner, and as
1fC oGu ho1 koI 60 ha ~1i
ment that decided against them, they
acquiesced in the decision.
The doctrine Of notification failed in
like manner. American justice could not
see how State could accept all the ad-
vantages Of the federal government and
decline to bear an equal share of its bur-
dens.
The moral difficulty which we have
solved by saying that the citizen of re-
public is not responsible for the morality
of judicial constitution, seems to present
itself to minds eminent in politics and
morals. In a recent public address Mr..
Semmes thus claims q renewed allegiance
to the moral code:
But the church has always maintained
that if the civil power commands some
thing wrong in itself we are not bound to
obey it; nor are we bound to obey the civil
power in matters not included within its
domain.
The principle of the independence of the
spiritual power, which the church has al
ways maintained, has by its existence at all
times, served to remind men that there are
limits to the civil power, that there are
things beyond its province, cases in which |
a man may say, II will not obey"
Now we endeavor to consider this not |
as question of ecclesiastical jurisdiction,
because the government of the United |
States has never received or exercised any |
such grant of power. But does net Mr.. |
Semmes perceive that these paragraphs
leave unsettled the question aoho is to de-
eide what matters are included within the |
domain of the civil power, and also what |
are the cases in which man may lawfully
say 81 will not obey" We will not sup
pose question in which the rulings of
State or federal court may come in con-
fict with the personal opinion of citi-
zen or the official opinion of political
authority in some foreign State. Such
question might be readily supposed. 1t
would only be some case in which an
equal and uniform charge upon all Amer
lean citizens infringed upon the ideas of
personal morality or legal jurisdiction
entertained by some man or association of
citizens in the United States. In such a
case, and in all contestable cases, it is the
duty of the American citizen to obey the
law as expounded by the courts of the
last resort. He can interplead no scruple
Of conscience; still less can he file in ar
rest of judgment the rescript of any for
eign authority. The citizen must obey
the law which he has, as citizen of a re-
public, promised to obey. If he will not
do so there is but one resource and
one refuge. To this, after having
complied with all pending obligations
Of his citizenship, he may resort. It
is the inalienable right of expatria-
lion. For this right we have fought
one war and provoked others. However
he American public might regret the
Individual or collective loss of such self
sxiles, it would be better than to ALLOW to
Zach citizen pledge of the validity of all
avs as applicable to him, or to authorize
IN injunction to issue from foreign gov
restraining the courts of the
United States from enforcing process
gainst an American citizen on the ground
hat such process was, in the opinion of
UGH foreign government, an unwarrant-
ole interference with the conscientious
onvictions of such American citizen. The I
igher law and notification doctrine hay
ng alike been repudiated by the Ameri-
an people, the assertion of the same doc
rine under any other set of circumstances