The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1874-03-11
BLACK AND THE HIGHER LAW.


The slave power knew its enemies, |
as by instinct, when Booth and Payne |
attacked Lincoln and Seward. Occa-
sionally now an old Northern dough.
face-a race almost extinct-attacks
the memory Of Lincoln or Stanton or
Seward, guided by the same kind of
instinct. The latest instance may be
found in published letter addressed
to Charles Francis Adams by Jeremiah
S. Black, Some people will remem-
Der Mr.. Blacks bitter attack on Mr..
Stanton soon after the death of that
great War Secretary. Others believe
that Mr.. Black inspired that venomous
book. Lannon's Life of Lincoln"
Many passages Of that work bear the
mark of his polished but Jesuitical
pen, while it is known that Lamon
and Black were associates and part
ners as lawyers and claim agents while
the book was in preparation. Mr..
Seward is now the object of defama-
ton by this busy jackal. As an expo
nent of the principles of the, Demo
cratic party Mr.. Black is the highest
authority.
1t is this which gives the subject the
greatest Importance. Can the leopard
change his spots?
Our attention is chiefly directed
now TO his attack on the higher law
and the astounding ignorance displayed
by the writer, of what Republicans
regard as the simplest principles of
moral philosophy applied to Govern.
ment. The mere lawyer we know,
who essays to dispose of the higher
law in the way Mr.. Black attempts to
do it in this letter to Mr.. Adams, is
apt to reject snch philosophy as too re.
fined and too spiritual Men Of Mr..
HACKS class recognize as their only
religion the worship of the State. I'm
like that party, the great men, the
leaders of mankind, ever manifested
supreme faith in God and humanity.
Adams denounced Hthe apologists of
the Stamp Act as "enemies of human
nature" The authority of British
law, as laid down by Blackstone, was
quoted against the act in these words
"The law of nature being coeval with
God himself, is, of course, superior to
any other. No human laws are of any
validity if contrary to this"
Alexander Hamilton, the framer of
the Constitution, affirms that "the sa-
cred rights Of mankind are not to be
rummaged for among old parchments
or musty records. They are written
as with sunbeam in the whole vol.
ume of human nature, and can never
be erased or obscured by moral pow.
er."
"Happy, thrice happy" said Wash
ington, "shall they be pronounced
hereafter who shall have assisted in
protecting the rights of human ma
ture."
The Revolutionary Congress, in its
last act, enjoined upon posterity to re-
member "that' it has ever been the
pride and boast of America that the
rights for which she contended were
rights of human nature"
Cicero wrote that denial of higher
law "subverts all union in state and
destroys the community of the human
race"
Locke inculcated the doctrine that
"lhere is divine law which is over
all society and all states, and which is
the only touchstone of moral recti-
tude."
Miltou's Defense of the People of
England" although at the time blrn
ed by the public executioner, its au-
thor only by good fortune escaping
the same fate, was but a promulga-
ton of the same philosophy so de-
rided by ex-Attorney General Black.
Guizot, in writing of the decline of
Roman civilization, arrives at the this
momentous conclusion: "The only
foundation of our hope for humanity
is in the great truth that there exists
law which, by whatever name it may
be called, whether reason, the law of
God, or what not, is at all times and
in all places the same"
Is it strange that the advocates of
this philosophy are still prosecuted
and denounced? Adams, Hamilton,
and Washington escaped the scafiold
only by the success of their cause,
while those from whom these statemen
derived their philosophy Locke, Sid.
ney, and Vane-perished as felons or
sought refuge in exile. Socrates, who
who first inculcated it, drank the IA
tai hemlock, and Cicero fell by the
sword of the assassin.
-S&D$-
IL