The origin of government and the duties of its subjects are justly attracting renewed attention. For upon the theory which prevails among the citizens of this country on this subject will depend their practice. If they are taught to regard the State, in its origin, purely as a social compact, and based in the will of man, one result may be anticipated—if as a divine institution and based in the will of God, another result will be witnessed.
No one who was interested in the late political struggle, has failed to notice how very unfixed are the present opinions of our people in regard to the fundamental principles of government, and consequently how great the doubt in respect to their duty as voters. Men felt that the right of suffrage was a privilege—they knew there was a duty connected with that privilege. Yet how many there were who were harassed for months—who, on the morning of the election, were hesitating—nay, who even went to the polls in doubt whether they were doing what they ought to do. Nor is it to be wondered at. The community had been distracted by clashing antagonistic doctrines. Each party had its rule of action. As many theories of government were presented as there are fast days in the calendar. Each advocate of his own treated all other theories as though he were acting on the advice given to a tyro at a Tipperary row, “Wherever you see a head, hit it.” Conscience was treated as if it were caoutchouc. The press and the pulpit were taxed for the invention of forcible arguments and apt illustrations. The fast-day was made a caucus day. Ministers were charged with preaching new doctrines by means of a forced exegesis. Old doctrines were gibbeted without ‘benefit of clergy.’ The sacredness of confidence was violated, and private letters were dispatched to a partisan press, to be heralded to the world with sneers instead of argument, and ridicule instead of logic. The good ways of our fathers were forgotten. Where they saw harmony we saw discord; where they had division we had dissension.
The storm has passed. And now does it not become us, as ‘good men and true,’ to repair what it has shattered—to fertilize what it has devastated? Ought we not to profit by our experience, and while the rack of the storm is still seen in the horizon to prepare for another?
In other words—can not some theory be proposed in respect to government and our duty as the subjects of it, which shall commend itself to the calm judgment of the good—to the earnest seekers for the truth?
The American citizen is the possessor of a choice heirship. He owes a duty to himself. So he does to those who carved out a birthright for him with their blades. He does to those who are praying for his prosperity today in the dungeons of Lombardy. He does to his fellow citizens who are now enjoying the blessings of our institutions—to the myriads whom he sees prospectively peopling this ‘domain of liberty.’ The mode of discharging this duty is to him a subject of no ephemeral importance. The right of suffrage is his own, and it is a question of deep significancy how he can best use it.
The cycle of our national election is not a long one. A struggle, similar, in many respects, to that through which we have just passed, will soon again demand our attention. Before it comes upon us we should determine our duty. When the mind is calm, when the eye is clear, we should look at principles; we should estimate their value. There is truth which invites our attention, which we can incorporate into our being, which will lift us above the pride and the prejudice of party, and which shall be an ever-living monitor within us. We can decide what relations we sustain to government—how we may best perform the duties of citizenship. There are fundamental principles on this subject which we can make our own, and which will guide us in every particular action which we shall be called to discharge. God did not leave man the victim of a blind impulse. He gave him reason that thereby he might determine his duty.
It is with a view of evolving these principles that this article is written. We commence with the common question, ‘Is civil government a divine institution?’ In its decision, we shall glance hastily at some of those problems which have agitated the public mind, and seem to call for a faithful solution.
What then are we to understand by a divine institution? I answer, any settled order of things which God has clearly willed to exist in all the appropriate circumstances of the existence of man. Any such order of things, the endurance of which we perceive to be for the best, and which we know to be universally established, we are warranted to consider of divine appointment. In every such case there is that in the nature of things which manifests its utility, and by its permanence shows its fitness for the circumstances in which it exists.
Under this comprehensive definition may be included two varieties.
I. The first embraces those institutions which God has expressly enjoined in his revealed word. These are positive in their nature, and depend not, primarily, on any perceived fitness by those to whom they are given, but on the authority of him who gave them. The reason of their observance lies in the law that prescribes them, and the force of the law centers in the superior character of the lawgiver. Of this nature was the Jewish theocracy. That divine institution, unique in its character, was one in which God became the national king, and the tutelary Deity of a people which he had chosen as the depositary of truth in the world, and thus promulged to them a law, whose observance he exacted with appropriate sanctions. Of this nature, too, were the Sabbath and the rite of circumcision under the old dispensation, and the ordinances of baptism and the Lord’s Supper under the new.
II. The second class does not depend on external command. The institutions under it are those the reasons of which lie in, and the observance of which springs from, the very constitution of things. They are such as men acknowledge by their practice to be universally necessary for their wellbeing—the germ of which is wrought into their very nature and developed in all the appropriate circumstances of their existence. These are just as much of divine institution as the former; for they owe their origin to that constitution of things which God has ordered, and are its useful and necessary accompaniments. Such institutions are not the fruit of a wanton caprice, resting on the arbitrary enactments of a particular age or people. They rest upon a firmer basis and are built of a more enduring substance. They are conjoined with the essential nature of that from which they proximately spring. It is not necessary in all cases that God should positively declare his will, that it may be perceived and known. We can learn it as well, if we will, from those tacit yet forcible manifestations of it which he makes in the dispensation of his works and the ordering of his providence, as from the page of his written word. And sometimes there is a deep meaning in the former which comes home to our minds with a peculiar energy. It is as though a thousand voices were whispering it, whenever we attend to their utterance, in tones so true that they find a response within us. Thus is the design of God made known as plainly as if written with his own finger on tables of stone. So that wherever we find these characteristics in a settled order of things, we there find the evidence of a divine institution. It is not enough that it has the marks of utility—that it evidently enlightens and ennobles wherever its beneficial effects are experienced—that it purifies and blesses those who partake of its benefits—but it must also be universal—established in all the appropriate circumstances of the life of man. These two grand characteristics then belong to this class: utility and universality.
Of this nature is human Society. In this the Creator has most clearly manifested his design. The necessity of it is written as a fundamental and inviolable law in the very nature of man. Instinct alone would almost declare it. The affections implanted in man, the dispositions and propensities that belong to the constitution of his body and his mind, with all their inseparable desires and infirmities, plainly demand its recognition. Without society the faculties of the mind, the gift of God, would remain undeveloped; they would droop and die. The safety and happiness of individuals depend upon it. A state of solitude is one of gloom; a state of society is one of pleasure. The love of offspring, the dependence of the young and the infirm, the noble and pure sympathies that are thereby nurtured, the thrilling attachment, the warm alliances which are produced, strong and lasting as life, all combine to prove that God constituted man for society. He implanted in his creatures that nature which unavoidably led to these genial and enduring relations. They are as universal as the race; they are for man’s highest well-being. Man everywhere is linked to his fellow man, and he feels the permanence and binding power of that union. It is perceived by the savage as well as by the enlightened, and is valued highly even where it is most ungainly. The forms of society may be improved; knowledge and experience, and the mild influence of religion, may have so fashioned society that it is now better adapted to develop the virtues and promote mutual happiness among mankind than in the ruder and earlier ages. Yet there the same great principle is seen struggling to expand and perfect itself. It is for these reasons that we call it a divine institution.
Of this nature, too, is Marriage. Without this relation, the purposes of human society would be defeated: virtue would be disregarded, and man would live under the lawless control of his wild and wanton passions. Though enjoined by no express command, like the Sabbath, etc, it is still a divine institution. The proof that it is such, is found in the original constitution of man as existing in society—in its necessity to his wellbeing—in its tendency to promote the kindlier feelings of our nature—in its universal prevalence throughout all the habitations of men. This seems to be the view that the Savior gave of it in his conversation with the Pharisees on the banks of the Jordan. From the beginning of the creation, he says, God made them male and female. There was that in the constitution which he gave them—in the relation they sustained to each other—which made it proper to say that God had joined them together. And although no command had been uttered, still the desire and necessity of this union, springing from the nature of man, and its tendency to sustain and exalt the design of human society, sufficiently prove it to be according to the will of God and an institution of his wise ordering. The Savior did not change its character: from the first it was a divine institution, and God established it because he saw it was for man’s highest good.
Civil government also belongs to this class. For it springs out of the necessities of things—the very constitution of man’s nature as a member of society—and is as universal as the race. It is of divine appointment inasmuch as it is wrought into the very texture of that being which God has designed for man, and must find its development under that ordering of events which God has fashioned. The good order, the interests, nay, the existence even of human society demand it. Civil government is needful to perpetuate and perfect those relations which exist between man and man—to control the grasping power of the profligate and impious—to shield the persons and property of the helpless—to inspire confidence and hope in the distrustful, and to give strength and continuance to existing union. It is proportionate to man’s capacity—it is level to his necessity. He feels that it is conjoined to his very condition and character—that its history is co-equal with his history—that he is necessitated by his very nature to continue it. Men—all men—in all the appropriate circumstances of their being, feel that civil government is indispensable to their highest good. No matter how diverse their sentiments in other respects—in this they agree. The Jew and the Mohammedan, the Papist and the Protestant, the Atheist and the Pagan, give their concurrent testimony to the utility, to the necessity of civil government. They feel that government must proclaim the sanctions of its law in their hearing—must throw up its bulwarks around them—must kindle up its watch-lights at every dangerous point–must send its influence through all the ramifications of human society. If the positive civil law were annulled, and all the forms of government abandoned—and if God’s revealed code was blotted out of existence—still would man feel the necessity of civil government. The deprivation of it would rest like an incubus on his mind. He would demand its re-formation—he would make it as lasting as his existence.
Now, to what are we to ascribe these facts? What do they prove, if not that civil government is a divine institution? God has so constituted man, and so ordered the circumstances of his being, that civil government exists wherever he exists—not as an arbitrary enactment, but the spontaneous fruit of his own being—the fulfillment of God’s will respecting his creatures. No voice has audibly commanded its constitution, no precept for its construction has been written in the books of the law. God has not chosen men to be the framers of civil society according to the pattern which he has showed them—he has not inspired them to teach the nations the science of government. Still, it is nonetheless manifest what was His design in regard to its establishment.
This view of civil government does not preclude the idea that it is, in some sense, a human creation. The simple fact that a civil institution is so useful and universal as to be properly said to be of divine ordination, does not take away from it its human character. The end of government, as government, is temporal. Its form comes directly or indirectly from the people. Even in an absolute monarchy it depends on their acquiescence and submission. Yet the necessity of government is not in their gift: it lies back of their action and is in no manner dependent upon it. They may adopt a particular form of government and promulge and enforce its sanctions—they may continue it for ages, and build upon its deep foundations an enduring fabric; but even then they have only perfected the design of the Creator. And therefore we say, that while its legitimate and binding prerogative is committed to their maintenance, the reason for its formation subsisted prior to the expression of their will: it arose from that order of things which God had established.
It would be an interesting study to trace back the present forms of government to their primitive sources, and to search out the causes which led to the adoption of each. The great and good governments which are now exerting such a benign influence have grown up from a far antiquity, or taken their present modifications from a series of individual events which conspired to that end. These facts prove that the particular form of every government comes from the people over whom it is exercised. What were the causes which led to this or that result may be more or less obscure. The “fierce democracie” of Attica did not spring to life till tyranny had aroused the energy of the Greek. The governments that clustered along the Archipelago were at first monarchical. But when the overbearing conduct of the petty chieftains made their sway insufferable, then Sparta called upon Lycurgus for her law, and Solon gave to Athens her constitution. Then the popular governments of those illustrious states became the harbingers of better days. Then came that list of lofty names to which succeeding ages have paid their homage.
The Baptist Congregational church in Virginia, near the residence of Mr. Jefferson, whose meetings he often attended, and in whose principles of church government he was strongly interested, may have been one great means of the establishment of a democratic government for these states. No matter how trivial, or how momentous, the causes which led to the formation of any particular government. This we may say, its adoption depended on the will of the people. But when it was duly organized, and men were invested with authority and the law had gained its binding force, then it was necessary for the general good and was an ordinance of God. It is important that these two ideas be conjoined. It is by looking at one exclusive of the other, that many mistakes have arisen, and many false theories been adopted in regard to government.
Government in its outward garb is human, and its design is human. It begins with man, is employed with regard to him, and terminates in him. At the same time, it is an ordinance of God—it is a part of that system which he designed for man—the desire of which, and the necessity for which, he incorporated into the being of man and made as co-extensive and permanent as his very existence.
The mere fact that any body of men had formed a civil government, and that great good resulted from its adoption and continuance, would not constitute it a divine institution. There are many examples that might be adduced to illustrate this. Take a plain one, our common school system. Here is an institution of wide adoption and beneficial in its tendencies. The fathers of New England felt the importance of education for their children. They founded this system. Scotland followed their example. Prussia is perfecting it. Its utility is acknowledged by all who are acquainted with it. Its design is to cultivate a desire of knowledge in the young mind, to enlarge its capacities, to direct its energies. Its result is the formation of good and regular habits in the young, a restraint from idle and vicious conduct, a preparation for a virtuous and useful manhood. Yet all this does not constitute it a divine institution: nor could it be called such if it should become universally prevalent. The system did not spring unavoidably and necessarily from the nature of man. It is the fruit of an advanced and improved state of society. It is incidental even among an enlightened and intelligent people. Any such institution limited in its utility and occasional in its origin, can not be a divine institution.
So is it not with government. This is an institution the utility of which all men have seen—the necessity of whose organization they have felt—the importance of which pressing on their minds, has led them to its universal establishment. It grew out of the nature which God gave to man, is evidently a part of the system which God designed for man, and for all these reasons united is properly termed a divine institution.
And here we see the binding force of government. It does not challenge our regard and observance simply because man has modeled it and it is for the general good—but for these reasons, together with the fact that it is the product of that nature which has God for its author and man for its subject. We feel its binding force, not because it is established, but it was established because we felt its binding force. Just like the common law. That code does not become a just one because the nations have recorded it in their statute books, but they recorded it there because it was founded in eternal justice. The essence of government lies back of human enactments, in the constitution ordained by God. He who tramples on it strikes a death-blow at an ordinance of God. In this view, government has a peculiar sanctity. It rises before us as a system that should be inviolate. We feel that it is the supporter of our best interests, that it is linked to our very destiny.
Let us see how this view agrees with the Scriptures. In one passage we find it written that civil government is an “ordinance of God,” is “ordained of God,” that rulers are “the ministers of God for good.” Again we read that government in its representatives, is “an ordinance of man,”—ἀνθρώπινη κτίσις—a creation of man. God, says Paul, in the wise arrangement of His providence, has so ordered the constitution of things, that civil government is indispensable to the highest good of His creatures. They who bear the sword are properly said to be His ministers for good. There is that in the nature of man, in the appropriate circumstances of his existence, which leads necessarily to this result—the establishment of civil government. God then may justly be said to ordain its existence. It springs out of that relation of things which he has established—it is their legitimate and necessary result. It is as though a decree had gone forth from His throne enjoining its institution. Peter gives us a different view. Looking upon the outward form of government as modeled by man, he calls it his creation. The different modifications of government are the result of man’s efforts. But although they are his creation, still as they become so under that wise ordination of which God was the author, they have in themselves a vitality and a binding force that commends them to our regard. It was because God had so designed the result, that man was led, by a necessity which had the force of a law, to the creation of civil government.
This view of human government then, seems to accord with the representations of the Scriptures. They do not teach us that it is solely a religious institution, preparatory to a higher and purer state of existence. They do not teach us that it exists by a direct creation of the Deity—that its laws and its sanctions are immediately promulged by Him. But they do teach us what we have attempted to maintain, that it arises from the constitution of things which in His wise counsels God has established, that its formation was wrought into the very nature of man and destined to a development in all the appropriate circumstances of his existence. And it is on this ground that those oracles give to government a lofty character. They call upon man to hold in high regard its external form, even if it is the work of man’s creation. They exhort men to submit to kings and governors, because, although elevated to that rank by the attested or implied consent of the people, they are those whom God has ordained to be the ministers of good. For the “Lord’s sake” and also “for conscience’s sake” they tell man he must needs be subject. Man should not make void what God foresaw would be for the highest good of man; the existence of which the universal propensities and necessities of his nature imperiously demanded. If God has thus plainly manifested his will, and man obeying the suggestions of the monitor within him, and fulfilling the designs of God, has erected the framework of civil society, then the members of it as a duty which they owe to each other and to Him, should submit to it as in harmony with His plan. Such we understand to be the teachings of the Scriptures. Such, too, would be the natural inference, if what is here maintained is true.
In accordance with what has now been presented, in some measure, were the views of those who have investigated the constitution of civil society. It was Aristotle who said that the nature of man demanded political society; ἐπεὶ δὴ φύσει πολιτικὸν ἄνθρωπος.
Even those who have held that “men did not at first embrace civil society as led to it by the bias of nature,” have been forced to acknowledge that they did embrace it “as driven by the fear of greater evils,” that “civil societies were absolutely necessary for their safety,” that “there was a natural obligation to enter into regular states and governments,” that “for a redress of those evils which otherwise arose, they had recourse to themselves as the surest defense, by joining together into one body and erecting a civil society.”1Puffendorf, passim
Now to what does all this amount if not to this, that the nature of man, in its appropriate circumstances, demands the establishment of civil government? Of his nature in other circumstances we know nothing, nor does it concern us in respect to this subject. And if the voice of universal nature is the echo of God’s will, then is civil government an institution of his ordering.
We find in one of these old writers a custom of the Persians related: On the death of their king they live the five ensuing days without any law, to the end that finding by experience the miserable effects of anarchy, slaughter, etc. that accompany such a condition, they may be engaged in a firmer allegiance to their sovereign. And such effects as they saw we may rationally conclude would be everywhere witnessed, were the forms of government and the sanctions of its law to be abolished, and man to be left to the unbridled indulgence of his wild and growing passions.
With the view of civil government which has now been advanced, we learn what weight is to be attached to those theories of government which have divided the sentiments of writers.
Granting the doctrine of Mr. Locke to be true—that civil government originates in the wants and fears of individuals, who, being naturally free, equal and independent, associate together, either by express or tacit consent, for the mutual protection of their lives, liberties and estates, on this fundamental principle, that the whole should protect all its parts, and that every part should pay obedience to the will of the whole—we are still led to ask, how came they “to agree to unite into one political society?” This very compact acknowledges the previous right of government; nay, it declares that the nature of man is such, in every condition of life, that the compact is universally necessary for his wellbeing. The compact itself is a written declaration, testifying in plain and definite terms, that God has clearly willed that government should exist in all the appropriate circumstances of man’s existence. Specious as the doctrine of the “social compact” seems to be, it disproves itself, it contains the elements of its own overthrow. Allowing its truth, the prerogative of government lies back of it. So far from being the cause of government, it is itself a mere incident in government. It becomes by its very existence an absolute proof that civil government is a divine institution. It is a doctrine possessing the show of truth without the reality, and adding a defect of facts to danger in practice.2The doctrine of Locke, Dr. Dwight strongly opposed, both in the chair and in the pulpit. He says, “no opinion is more groundless that this. The absurdities of this doctrine are endless. At the same time, there is no fact more clearly evinced by the history of man, than that such a compact never existed. This, even the abettors of it are obliged to confess; and this cuts up the doctrine by the roots. For if the social compact was not a fact, it is nothing.”(Theology, Vol. III, p. 324, passim.) He as strongly maintained that government was founded in the will of God. And even Mr. Locke himself maintains that “God put man under strong obligations of necessity to drive him into society,” that “the power of the legislative constituted by man, can never be supposed to extend farther than the common good;” that “upright judges, standing laws, and the execution of them, are directed to no other end but the peace, safety, and public good of the people.” All of which goes far to strengthen the doctrine herein maintained. For surely if civil government is for the “common good,” and “God has placed man under strong obligations” to establish it in all the circumstances of his being, then, according to what has been heretofore proved, it is a divine institution.
Again, if with Dr. Paley and others, we trace back civil government to paternal authority, and the order of domestic life, yet still it is true, as this author acknowledges, that the disposition to govern and to be governed, is incidental to the very nature and coeval with the existence of the human species. If in the golden age (Saturnia regna) the patriarch was the prince, still as soon as men had multiplied sufficiently, the need of mutual support must have led to a firmer organization. The natural course of human affairs tended directly to multiplied dangers, and as an unavoidable necessity, to the security afforded by an enlarged and strengthened state of civil society.
In this view then, we are led to the natural inference that it is of divine appointment, and designed for man in all the conditions of his being.
Again, if we consider civil government as founded in utility—we must mean by this, its universal nature—as everywhere required for the greatest good of the greatest number. Looking at the history of our species—the efforts of the former ages—the present condition of the nations—we are forced to admit that its formation is for the highest possible good. And it is so, because God has formed the nature of man, so that in all the conditions of life, civil society is a necessary and unavoidable accompaniment of his existence. The interests of society require it—the common welfare of individuals and of the race—the universal desires and necessities of mankind have called for its organization—it is the perfecting of the purposes of God in regard to man—a necessary part of that system which he has evidently designed for man, and therefore is a clear and forcible manifestation of the highest utility.
It is on this ground that we rest our doctrine of civil government; it is an institution of God, whose design is the highest welfare of man. He has committed it, as a means of their greatest happiness, to men, and demands of them that they secure by it the great ends of human society. It is a fearful and an important trust, by reason of those momentous interests and destinies that center in it. Rightly understood and regarded it will confer untold benefits upon the nations. It will lift itself above the raging multitude and hush to repose the angry passions of men; it will go down to the lowly home of the humblest citizen and whisper in his ear of peace; it will stand as the palladium of society, whither men shall ever look for the preservation of their inalienable rights. Thus shall it be proved, in the language of Locke, that the end of government is the good of mankind.
If the things which have now been advanced are true, it requires no deep reflection to perceive the duties of citizenship. It is an obligation that rests upon every citizen to promote the public good, and secure the manifold and momentous interests of society. Of the many particular methods by which these things may be attained, it will be sufficient to glance at a few.
1. The support of Law
There is a tendency in these times to break down the barriers of the law, or at least to trespass as far as may be without danger within its boundaries. The memory does not go far back to recall the convulsions of one of our states, when an armed force was required to sustain the law. We have heard it declared in large assemblies of the people, that the execution of certain laws of the United States shall be resisted because they are not in harmony with the private views of individual expediency. During the last session of Congress, a bill passed the senate which was opposed by one half of the talent and learning and eloquence of that body, as an infraction of the Constitution and a violation of the national faith. In different sections of the country we hear of outrageous violence upon the persons and property of the citizens, and an open defiance of the laws of the state. These things, trifling as they may appear individually, indicate a sad tone of public sentiment and point forward to thick-coming dangers. They tell us, if we will regard the voice, that as citizens of this country, which has but just commenced an illustrious existence, in whose behalf the sympathies and prayers of so many are enlisted, we have a fearful trust committed to us, and one which demands of us an argus-eyed watchfulness. Our judiciary is viewed with a jealous eye, and contempt is cast on our system of jurisprudence. these are our safeguards—the last fortresses in which retiring liberty will make a stand against the inroads of a wild and fearful anarchy. In those days of the Athenian degeneracy which marked the decline of that people’s greatness and glory, when the violence of men desolated all that was fair and conservative in their institutions, no voice was heard to defame the venerable tribunal of the Areopagus. And it will be a mournful day for us, when the decisions of the Supreme Bench and the investigations of the bar shall be mocked and disregarded. The law will then be no more “the mother of our peace and joy,” but discord and terror shall reign and riot in the chambers of justice.
How far the state of things to which we allude may be owing to false views of government, it may be difficult exactly to determine; but that right views would result in a better tone of public sentiment, we are warranted to decide. Government must be considered as an institution of divine appointment, demanding a faithful and cheerful obedience; while of law we must learn to think that “her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world.” Men must be taught to regard the law as supreme, and a violation of it as not only treason against the state, but an act of wanton violence on the rights of every individual.
It is indeed true that there are cases where revolution is justifiable—where it is not only a right but a duty for the citizen to resist “the powers that be,” and destroy their authority. For whenever government passes beyond its rightful limits and subverts the ends for which it was designed, then it degenerates into a lawless assumption of power, and is a rank usurpation. But the evils must be immense to justify a resort to arms. The unavoidable calamities of civil feuds and a protracted struggle, with the loss of valuable lives and the corruption of the public morals, and all the tide of wasteful and saddening maladies which would inevitably flow over the nation, are sufficient to show that submission must be a duty except under rare circumstances. The natural rights of the citizen must be so infringed that submission is past endurance; all peaceful means of redress must have been resorted to in vain; the prospect of a successful issue must be manifest and morally certain—there must be this unusual combination of events before the last appeal can be made. Then it may be made; then resistance is high heroism. From this it is evident that a justifiable revolution is an exception to a general law. For as a general principle, it is only by the support of the existing laws that the greatest public good can be secured. Any other principle would be false in doctrine and fatal in practice. If by this rule it results that the rights of individuals are not respected; that crimes go unpunished and the guilty are free; that evils prevail of which the laws take no cognizance—then private interests must suffer, and the guilty escape merited penalty, and evils be patiently endured, until a lawful and a peaceful remedy can be applied.
On this ground we take our stand, and maintain that here, and here alone, is safety and truth. Granting that in a certain case summary justice might be enforced by the despotic will of one man, or the no less despotic will of a mob of men; yet what does all that avail, when by this very act the confidence of the community is shattered, the reign of violence introduced, the law dethroned, and all its pure and righteous sanctions cast out and forgotten? What avails it that one man has experienced the full and just penalty for his crime; that one community has sated its burning thirst for the blood of the guilty victim, if all other men throughout the land must feel that the majesty of the law has been insulted—that the arm of justice is thereby palsied, and if in all their habitations terror must sit down by their sides, and voices of fear forever whisper of danger? Thus would the ordinance of God be with effect resisted, and they who bear the sword would no more be a terror to evil works, but to the good.
It is also evident that government must be regarded as something more than the instrument of man’s caprice or power; it must have the lofty character which belongs to it as an institution designed by God; subsisting in all the conditions in which man exists; possessing an origin as noble as his origin, and a continuance as lasting as his being. Then will the support of law be regarded in its true light, as a duty which man owes to himself and to his fellow man, and to God. In obedience to it consists his true interests and glory; for it is this which elevates him above a state of barbarism, and secures him from the wild misrule of passion and prejudice; which enables him to attain the true end of his being, and accomplish the wise designs of God for his welfare.
It is on this ground that the Scriptures place it. Submission is enjoined, because in the wise administrations of his providence God has ordained government as an institution tending to promote the highest good of man. Jesus, our Redeemer, knew no disloyalty. He, though the King of kings, was prompt to perform the exactions of the government—nay, he was ready to do more than could be justly required. “Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s,” he said to the Herodians who tempted him. “Notwithstanding, lest we should offend them, I give them the tribute,” he said to Peter, as he sent him to the sea for the piece of money.
The apostle of the Gentiles was like his master. He was ready to lay down his life if he had done ought worthy of death. “I appeal to Cæsar,” he boldly said to his bitter persecutors. “The dark, unrelenting Tiberius, the profligate and cruel Nero, the timid, inhuman Domitian,” may bear the sword, submission is still a duty. Better is it to suffer under the sway of a base, and profligate, and tyrannical administration—better endure persecution, and sorrow, and evil—than to undermine the fabric of civil society, and introduce disorder, and anarchy, and lawless violence, and the wild play of passion, and every evil work, and gloomy forebodings, and the dark uncertainty of a favorable issue.
II. Another method of attaining and perfecting the ends of government, is a proper use of the right of suffrage.
This is a subject interesting from its intrinsic importance, and from the peculiar position of affairs in this country at the present time. The full discussion of it would open too wide a field for this place: a few points only, which are most naturally suggested by what has already been said, will be noticed. Upon proper views of this right and corresponding action, next to the blessing of God, depends the fate of the nation.
It was an era pregnant with destiny, when, in the cabin of the Mayflower, moored on the rock-bound coast of New England, those Pilgrims from a far land formed that compact which was to be their guide during days of fierce and terrible trial, and the germ of those institutions which not only grace and bless this western republic, but have attracted the notice and deep interest of the potentates of the eastern world and their groaning subjects. In the blessings of which those times were the morning and those men the heralds, it is our privilege to participate. By the good hand of their God upon them, they committed to their descendants the prerogative of self-government, so that in the hands of the citizens of this country is centered the moral power and efficacy of the government. What shall be the nature of the laws, the tone of public sentiment, the character of the rulers, the influence of the nation–it is for them to decide by their individual suffrages. Hence it becomes a matter of no small moment and importance how they can best fulfill their trust. From what has already been advanced, a general answer is apparent—they must vote so as to promote the greatest public good. In the selection of candidates for the high offices of trust and duty, care should be taken to choose those who will aim to administer government according to its great design; to promote the true prosperity and wellbeing of society, and disseminate among the people the principles of virtue. History tells us how dangerous it is to trust the administration of the state to the hands of the licentious and unprincipled. The record that has come down to us from other nations, written with their own blood, should be a warning to the free citizens of this republic to guard, with a jealous eye, the chair of office and trust. Virtue and principle in the rulers will lead to virtue and welfare among the people. There is a growing neglect on this subject in some of the commonwealths, which forebodes disaster and public evil. In the zeal and strife for success, when partisans of lofty talents are borne on by the tide of feeling, and the great assemblies of the people are excited by the voice of eloquence, there is danger that the vital principles of government will be sacrificed to the rancor and prejudice of party.
It must be engrafted into the minds of the nation that government is a divine institution, whose ultimate end is the good of mankind. God intended that by it the best interests of society should be promoted, that it should send forth from its fountains streams of life and happiness through all the domain over which its influence should extend. He enjoined its constitution by no express command, but by the universal nature and necessities of the creatures whom he made. He committed to men the privilege of forming such a framework of government as their peculiar condition demanded, or their intelligence could devise; while at the same time he wrote it as a fundamental law for their observance, that in its formation and execution it should tend to and perfect the exalted design of man’s highest good. Hence, it is plain that when the administration of the government is dependent on the suffrages of the people, those suffrages should be given in the manner that will best secure the great ends of society—the highest welfare of the subjects. Principles, not spoils, should be the price of votes. The ballots of the citizens should be the instruments of exalting the nation’s character; of infusing the elements of virtue into all the departments of the state; of imparting vigor and life to its moral actions; of sending abroad to other nations the influence and the light of an exalted patriotism and a disinterested philanthropy.
There are many other subjects of a practical nature to which this discussion naturally leads, and which, by reason of the importance thrown around them at the present time, it would be interesting to examine. But the principles which have been laid down, if true, are sufficient to direct aright in all those particular questions which may be brought before the citizen. It becomes him, above all other things on this subject, to remember that government is a divine institution, whose end is the good of mankind, and to act for the promotion of that end.
