The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1886-07-10

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chances of ruin are so great. He said
labor must combine for its own eleva-
tion it cannot do otherwise, and in
stead of its being dangerous, the eleva-
tion of labor was the only way to safety.
The ignorant, degraded, unintelligent
mass of labor was to be feared. These
organizations might make mistakes.
Mistakes were incident to all new move
ments, but they could make no greater
mistakes than capital had made. Had
capital made no mistakes? What was
slavery but the. great mistake of capi-
tal-of Southern capital that wished to
avail itself Of the unrequited labor of
the black man, and of Northern capital
that wished to avail itself of Southern
trade. The history of the world was
full of the mistakes of capital. We
must cherish the higher education open
to all, as the hope of our country. 1t
was the hope of religion. Religion was
never in danger from education and
thought. It's great danger is from ig-
norance and indifference. The people
must be intelligent, religious. moral,
able to think for themselves, and to dis
tinguish between the true and the false,
the substantial and the deceptive. l
cannot begin to do justice to the thought
or the language of the address, but
thought it worthy of an attempted re-
port.
Mrs. Hattie Tying Griswold, our wri-
ter at Columbus-so the Sentinel of Mil
waukee says-has an article in the Sun
day issue of that paper, advocating the
strict enforcement of all the laws, and
claiming that it is the duty of the indi-
vidual to obey even unjust laws until
they are repealed. The Sentinel says
she even criticises those who refused to
obey the fugitive slave law. The Sen
tinel takes the ground that the laws
should not all be strictly and impartially
enforced, but their enforcement should
depend upon the nature of the law and
the state of public sentiment. The Sun
day laws, for instance, have come down
to us from the past, when the religious
sentiments of the people were quite
different from what they are to-day,
and should not be enforced, neither
should they be repealed, but kept on
the statute book to be revived in case
of too flagrant violation. 1t seems to
me that such sentiments are outrageous
1t seems to me that it is the duty of all
officers to regularly, constantly and i'm
partially enforce all lawssupon the stat
ute book, which are unrepealed. Pres
ident Grant said, 1.-THE best way to
secure the repeal of a bad law is to
strictly enforce it." While in my mind
there is no doubt as to an executive Of
ficer's duty, on the other hand it is the
duty of all citizens to obey the law,
even at inconvenience to themselves,
unless that law compels them to vio-
late their consciences, when it is their
duty to offer a passive resi- tance, or if
too outrageous, an active resistance
land take the consequences) until its
repeal can be secured. Nor can we
deny the sacred right of revolution,
when the tyranny of persons or of un-
righteous laws has become unsupporta-
BILE.
The duty of executive officers is plain,
and if they cannot enforce the laws
regularly, constantly, and impartially,
without fear or favor, against friend or
foe, with good conscience, then they
should resign their trust as a noble
mayor of Saltwater, Mimi, did few
months ago. He said he could not con-
scieptiously enforce some laws, and not
others, as political and personal infu-
ence required of him to do, and so he
resigned.
The idea is monstrous that Sunday
law or any other is to be kept in the
UoSChSlOuuu do a oOlO VI Jug d-DOO W
be revived from time to time when the
powers that be see fit to punish some
one for an infraction of it. The laws
would in this way become the instru-
ment of mere personal or party spite,
or petty malice. Nor should mere pub
lie sentiment decide whether the law
should be enforced or not Public SEN
timent has but one constitutional way
of making itself felt in regard to law,
and that is through its representatives,
the law-making power. If the officers
may judge of the expediency of enforc-
ing any law, then they possess practi-
cally the power to suspend or abrogate
the law, which is but one step from
assuming to enact law, land we are al
ready come nearly to thatl, and we
shall soon arrive at that point, if, in
deed, we have not already, where the
enforcement of the law is looked upon
by the politicians in the same light as
the patronage of the civil service, as a
party perquisite-and whether the law
shall be enforced or not, is alone to be
determined by this, "How will it affect
the party ?" and this being the case,
we are no longer under government
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