Amador ledger., 1906-06-15
A Bugaboo About Law.

We have no patience With the hue
and cry usually heard about the en-
forcement of concededly bad and un
just laws. The better plan to deal
with iniquitous laws is to ignore
them; let them remain dead upon
the statute books-monuments only
to crude notions of those who passed
them. No amount of enforcement
will make a poor law seem right in
the minds of honest law abiding men,
When we say claw abiding men
we refer to those who have the high
est respect for true Iaws-Jaws which
. safeguard the rights of citizens;
which protect the man in his person
and the enjoyment of his property,
and Furnishes the wrong doer who
attempts to injure him in such rights.
1t is only such enactments that are
entitled to the sacred name of "Iaw.'
Others are of the counterfeit stamp,
and as such are worthy of the con-
tempt rather than the respect of up
right men. 1t makes one tired to
hear people say that simply because
some enactment has been branded
claw" 1t therefore should be en-
forced-regardless of its character
regardless of whether it is of the
genuine or bogus kind. Away with
such ideas. Law is the condensation
of the wisdom of the ages as to what is
right between man and man. Through
travail and darkness OF past ages we
have reached the light of the present.
Doubtless we are tar removed yet
from the perfect day, but we are
inmeasurably ahead of the centuries
that have gone before. Some OF
the greatest atrocities recorded in
history we're perpetrated under the
guise and in the name of law. In the
dark ages they did what some would
seemingly be willing to do now-use
the law to throw a titfuI glamor of
sanctity around iniquity. 1t was
under color of law that some of the
worlds greatest and best men we're
tortured and executed. The fires of
martyrdom, the tortures of the in
QUESTION, we're all sanctioned by law.
SO called witches we're put to death
at the stake in conformity with the
laws of those times. No doubt the
same argument was resorted to in de-
tense of such persecution in tn ose
days that we hear once in a while
now-"the best way to get rid of
lad law is to enforce it.
This subterfuge of an excuse has
not passed muster with the verdict of
history. Those who forfeited their
lives in protest against unrighteous
laws, are hailed in these days as
heroes, who sacrificed life in the
cause OF right; while those who aided
in the enforcement of such laws are
looked upon as the real criminals.
No sentimental nonsense of the sane
tlty OF everything that is branded as
law is allowed to redeem the per-
secutors from the infamy of their
deeds, or to rob the prosecuted from
their well-earned niche in the temple
OF fame. The martyrs in thebrigther
light of this age, were the law
makers, while the officials who
bounded them to death were the law
breakers. Would it not have been
far better for the reputation of those
days, if the iniquitous laws under
which such deeds were done, had
been allowed to perish on the statute
books of sheer inanition, than to
have called down the condemnation
OF future generations by the mon
strous injustice of their enforcement.
Public opinion has been educated up
to point far beyond the record of
dark ages, and will not as a rule bow
down before every idol that bears
the superscription of Claw" Nova
days men believe they are not justifi-
ed in perpetrating a wrong in the
name of law; that by fidelity to their
convictions of right, they best serve
the cause of law. And this change
OF sentiment is not retrograde, but
a forward movement of the highest
Importance.