pursue them to their just and discriminated results. | same source, and allied by blood to all the atrociThe consequence is that the plausible conclu- ties of socialism will produce the very same kind sions just alluded to, appear to the rude appre- of effects. hensions of the people as the just and necessary consequences of those principles of freedom, which are universally admitted to be true. Hence all these social evils, fraught as they are with everything to shock and disgust a cultivated sensibility, appear to the masses as the necessary fruits of all just reform. When this sentiment is created, society perishes under the armed shock of the democracy.

The question of moral sentiment raised in the speech of Mr. Seward, is involved in this mass of metaphysical speculations, and the whole may be brought into a manageable form by reverting to the grand principle common to all. The discussion of it then leads us back to original principles, and from a consultation with the origin of government, we may determine the rights and immunities of conscience.

Now the only possible way, in which this sen- There are several theories held on the subject of timent can be kept from growing up in the minds the origin and design of government, and from the of the people, is to check the misapplication of differences in these theories are derived importhe maxims of equality by the precepts of moral tant differences in practice. The grand idea of law. Men must be met by a law which they the abstract equality of men considered simply acknowledge to be authoritative, ordering them as creatures, found no place in the feudal systo refrain from entrenching upon the rights of tem of Europe. The divine right of kings and their neighbor. They must be informed that the passive obedience of the subject formed the such absurd misapplications of acknowledged political creed of all Europe. The first glimtruths as result in all the theories of socialism, merings of the modern liberty dawned on the are absurd in themselves, are violations of justice keen intellects and stubborn pride of the English between man and man, and are offensive to the people. From a time beyond the records of aulaws of God. The authority of Deity must be thentic history the essential elements of political invoked to give force to these sentiments of mo- emancipation gradually expanded in the English rality, or else they will lose all weight by subsi- jurisprudence, until they were transplanted and ding into advice, when the whole benefit of their application depends upon their having the force of law.

matured in the fresh and vigorous conceptions of the statesmen of America. Here the bold and daring genius of our fathers pushed the popuThe evil done by the French speculators is lar principles of the British Constitution to then plainly discerned. They stimulated the peo- their just and most noble conclusions. Preachple to a rigid examination into their natural ing the glorious evangel of absolute equality of rights, and at the same time broke down the au- right in human creatures, the fathers of this rethority of moral and religious law, by discrediting public reared the magnificent structure of demothe evidences of Christianity, and even the very cratic government. Caught by the fascinating existence of a God. The rude intellect of the beauty of this new philosophy of politics, the people unable to draw the delicate yet essential speculators of Europe began to expand them in distinctions in the metaphysical theory of free- the machinery of a metaphysical logic, until the dom, and at the same time taught to believe that prescription and hoary legitimacy of a thousand the concrete truths and precepts of morality, ages trembled to the hosannahs, which proclaimwhich guarded against the misapplication of the ed the rights of man and the equality of the race. maxims of equality, were without any legitimate Metaphysical theories and metaphysical schemes authority-soon began to insist that the equality of reform grew into the most dangerous repute. of men extended to every object of desire and Facts were left out of view, all secondary rights that all obstacles in the way of a practical appli- were forgotten, all regard to the influence of circation of them were crushed by the mere force cumstance was impatiently thrust aside as standof necessary right and justice. The result is ing in the way of the immediate regeneration of well known. In less than five years from the mankind, and the naked maxims of abstract time, when the States General met in 1789, to equality were pushed to extremes at once ludiembody the demands of the French nation in a crous and terrible. The results have already new constitution, France had become memorable been alluded to in this review. The excesses of to the remotest ages, as the theatre of the most the French Revolution excited a total revolution fearful tragedy known to the history of modern in many minds until then fully imbued with the times. The Reign of Terror was the legitimate principles of freedom. The fearful power of offspring of a union between the republican the- these maxims in the hands of an undisciplined ories of Locke and Sidney, and the skeptical rabble, led the cautious, nay, even many of the theories of Voltaire and Rousseau. The doc- most sanguine, to question the utility of a specutrines of the abolitionists springing from the lative theory capable of such a terrible abuse.

The current in Eugland ran high against every and equal, is a self-evident truth when properly thing tainted with the French philosophy, until, understood. It does not mean to affirm that men in the effort to avoid the evil, the good was re- are equal in anything but in their abstract rights morselessly assaulted. Sentiments begun to be considered simply as creatures. Nor does the uttered, which would have disgraced the worst assertion of freedom affirm a release from all obdays of the most imperious Tudor, or the most ligation to existing law; neither does the phrase unprincipled Stuart. Ideas, which would have by nature mean that men are actually born to

been the scorn of the Englishmeu of the times equal equitable right to the existing valuables of of Hampden and Cromwell, were the avenues to human possession. The whole sentence bas promotion in the reign of George the Third. A reference to man considered as a creature, and prelate of the Established Church boldly declared prior to any consideration of him as a member that "the people had nothing whatever to do of society. Of course since all are by nature free with the laws except to obey them." The great and equal, no one has a right to control another, philosophical statesman of the day fell back which the other does equally possess over him. from the platform on which he had preached the But the propensities of nature and the necessities doctrines of freedom in his youth with a force of of the case drive men into society, and this is neeloquence, a profusion of fancy, a wealth and cessarily formed by the relinquishment of certain amplitude of logic, a splendor, vehemence, and personal rights on the part of those who compose variety of diction, unexampled in the parlia- the association and form the compact. If all the mentary history of England; and the matured rights of the individual had been relinquished wisdom of Edmund Burke, alarmed for the very into the hands of society, then no injury could be foundations of society, was found combating the done to the individual, no matter how despotic ardent principles of his young and glowing ge- the action of government might be; but the thenius. The whole theory of freedom fell into ory of the partial surrender of right. guards the contempt, and principles were asserted in the reserved rights of the individual and marks the heat of the conflict which would perpetuate just bounds of the civil authorities. The end of every despotism on earth, and petrify all the government is not complex, but specific; it is not miseries of social life. Everything was resolved a great reservoir into which the whole mass of into prescription, and no right was admitted to human rights have been poured, and from which be valid, which could not trace a pedigree back the individual is to draw all the rights of his perthrough the records of authentic history into the son, and the supplies of his wants. The state is mists of tradition. The University of Cambridge not the great parent of the individual, to whom sent forth from the pen of Hey, a denial of all is committed the charge of stimulating the enerthe rights of man, except such as were created gies and directing the conduct of the separate by civil government. This theory could not re- atoms that compose it. The just end of governsist the formidable accusation of being founded ment is simply the protection of the members of on the absurdity that government existed before society in the use and enjoyment of their reserved man, and of justifying all possible extravagances rights, and if the individual chooses to neglect or of tyranny. Certainly the only right that man abuse them, the government has no responsibility has to complain, exists when his rights are vio-to render, and no right to complain. The conlated, and if he has no rights at all but what are allowed him by government, if government choose to allow him no rights at all, he must suffer in silence, with no room to complain. The very grossness of this theory proved its destruction. The theory of Burke differed from the theory of Hey, by admitting the rights of nature, and claiming that they were all surrendered into the hands of society to be doled out according to its own ideas of prudence and necessity. It is fatal to this modified theory of absolutism that it is followed by the very same practical results, which slew the theory of Cambridge. If a man has given up all his rights, then he has no more right to complain if any or all of those rights are withheld from him, than if he had no rights at all, except what were granted by the favor of society. The true theory of the design and origin of government is this: that all men are by nature free

trary theory that all rights of person have been merged in the general good of the whole and committed for management to the care of the government, would make it the duty of the civil authority to apply all necessary means of coercion to secure the industry of the individual and the supply of all his wants. Of course if the government failed in this duty, the individual might complain that his right to take care of himself had been removed, and yet the government failed to provide for him. It is this grand mistake as to the proper design of civil government, which brings the armed mobs of Paris round the Chamber of Deputies, clamoring for employment, and looking to the civil power to provide them bread to eat and clothes to wear. The whole scheme is built upon a false theory. The end of government is simply to protect the individual in the enjoyment of his rights and in the proper

pursuits of his calling; not a protection and a pa- | complain of oppression is measured by the rights tronage by direct acts of governmental power to he has reserved, and not by his rights in the promote his interests, but a simple protection abstract. from interruption or disturbance in his own efforts to enrich himself. The just functions of a civil government are defined by the rights relinquished into its hands, and it cannot equitably pass the bounds of those relinquished rights. As soon as it begins to touch the individual by direct acts of power, it does to that extent transcend the just functions of its office.

What then are the rights which man has relinquished to society? In the briefest terms, they are only those which are necessary to the discharge of the functions and the accomplishment of the purpose of civil government. All rights not necessary for this purpose are reserved to the individual. Thus the rights of conscience are not necessary to the existence of society, and It is perfectly true, as Paley says, that the are retained by the individual. Thus the rights social compact is a fiction, that no solemn con- of property are not necessary to the maintenance vention was ever held in reality to define the of society, and are reserved to the individual. rights of the governor and the duties of the The right to tax is a species of exception, begoverned; but it is not true, as he says, that it is cause some property value is essential to the not just to allow practical results and reforms to support of the government. So, inasmuch as grow out of this fiction of fancy. Although the conscience may be concerned in the execution of formal creation of the social compact has never the laws, when the control of conscience becomes occurred as a historical fact, it is, nevertheless, a necessary to the existence of society, the governmetaphysical truth. It is the idea implied in the ment may exert a negative control over it, and formation of society. When men are found for- analogous to the power of taxation. But civil mally relinquishing their rights, it must be sup-government has no more right to interfere with posed that they are doing it in consideration of the proper rights of conscience, than it has to some other advantage. To suppose men then absorb all the property of the land, under a preto relinquish their rights of self-control to another, is to essentially and necessarily suppose that they are to receive some beuefit in return. It is this This simple conception of the origin and deidea of mutual advantage that is the cause of so- sign of government, as based upon rights reliuciety, and is necessarily pre-supposed in its forma- quished by the citizen and designed to protect tion. Just as the idea of a fixed relation between him in the rights he has reserved, cuts through numbers is taken for granted in the operations of all the confused and disorderly disquisitions of arithmetic, so the existence of society implies the Paley and other moralists, who have attempted mutual expectation of advantage. Even Burke to reconcile a union of the Church and the State himself in the midst of his splendid effort to dis- with the genuine principles of religious liberty. credit the theory of freedom admits that society The whole system of a state religion is based is a contract.† This compact is the implied upon the usurpation of certain functions by the guaranty of mutual benefit between the ruler civil government, to which it had no manner of and the ruled. This implication is positive proof title. No government has the right to discrimithat the theory we have advanced as to the par-nate between contending creeds to the advantage tial relinquishment of right on the part of the in- of one, and the restraint of the other, simply bedividual is true, because a total relinquishment cause the rights of conscience have been reserved of right would involve an e evil far worse than to the individual and all interference with them those designed to be avoided by the forma-is usurpation and tyranny. This is the outline tion of society, and the gross folly of sacrificing of the theory of religious freedom, rising from the end to the means.

tence of exercising its acknowledged and lawful right to levy taxes for its necessary support.

the mists of oppression and fanaticism like a tower of steel, whose dark and polished battlements lift themselves towards Heaven in all the severe simplicity of invincible truth.

But inasmuch as obedience to the laws is a moral duty, and as such comes under the jurisdiction of conscience, what principle is to govern the civil authority in its requirements from couscience, and conscience in its conduct towards

It will be noticed that the individual has no right to complain unless his reserved rights are invaded, and that government has no right to regard anything as rebellion which does not violate the functions of its office. The individual can never destroy his abstract rights as a creature, because he can never be anything else than a creature, but these abstract rights remain as pure abstractions, entirely subject to the rights and the law? On the broad principles on which we duties growing out of his new position as a member of society. The right of the individual to *Paley, vol. 5, 288-289. + Burke's works, vol

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498.

have discussed the formation of government, it has no right to require from conscience obedience to any law, except those which properly belong to its fuuctions. Within the bounds

of its appropriate duty the civil law has a right| It will be seen and admitted by all that conto call upon conscience to enforce its dictates, science as the representative of the deity has no and conscience so far from having the right to right, in a moral view, to oppose the laws of the refuse is bound to comply. But this supposition land, except when they violate the laws of God. involves the implication that government is dis- If there is a real discrepancy between the law charging its just functions, which of course can- of the land, and the commands of God, it is right not conflict with the rights of conscience. By "to obey God rather than man." No such law the just functions of government we here mean, can impose an obligation to obedience; it is void not the functions which may be just and lawful by the essential nature of morality; men are according to the particular constitution of a coun- bound by every tie of loyalty to God not to obey try; but functions that are proper according to it. But conscience may often mistake and misthe abstract idea of a just government. A represent the requirements of God; has it no thing may be lawful, by a particular constitution rights in this case? It is here necessary to disor frame of government, and yet be a violation tinguish between the rights of conscience towards of moral right. It may be lawful according to God, and its rights towards man. No one will the laws of a country to force conformity to an admit that conscience has any right to alter or established religion, but this would be au outrage modify the laws of God. If therefore conscience to moral law, because it is injustice to the rights pronounce a thing to be immoral, which is really of conscience. No government has a moral right commanded in the divine law, it is responsible to to require any obedience from conscience except God. But the government has no right to bewithin its morally just functions. If it does make come an umpire between conscience and the disuch a requisition, although conformable to the vinity, and decide that this scruple is just and laws of the land, the government is responsible that scruple is unfounded; as this would confor a breach of what is right. There can then stitute the government lord over conscience, be no difficulty, when the functions of civil govern- whose rights have been reserved to the citizen. ment are confined within the limits made lawful If mistaken consciences have no rights, their freeto it by moral propriety. The real difficulty in dom in religion is a mockery. No matter how the case arises, when government makes a re-wide may be the errors of a conscience, the civil quisition upon conscience which it was entitled arm has no right to judge of the error. There is to make by the laws of the land, but which it responsibility somewhere; but the matter is perhad no right to make according to the precepts sonal with the citizen and the decision rests with of abstract justice, or when conscience, whether him. It is just here that the grand question of truly or not, receives the impression that the re- the freedom of thought-the rights of private quirement of the law is an offence against God. judgement-the necessity for an authorized inIf the government requires an offence to moral- terpreter on points of doctrine and duty so long ity, of course the government is to blame. If conscience puts a false construction on the morality of the requisition, conscience is to blame. We here consider both the government and conscience under their mutual relation and subordination to the law of God. But we must consider them under their relations to each other, if we would reach practical conclusions. If every conscience which conceives its rights to be violated is allowed to nullify the laws of the land, the laws lie at the mercy of each individual moral sense, and society is dissolved. On the contrary, if the government is permitted to force any requisition it may choose to pass, all the rights of conscience and the freedom of religion is annihilated. Who shall decide upon an issue between the claims of the law and the conscience of the citizen? If the government decides, does it not become a judge of conscience; if the individual is to decide for himself, do we not admit the superiority of individual opinion over the laws of the land? These are the grave and difficult questions involved in this controversy. They must be answered in detail.

agitated between the Protestant and the Papist, takes its position in this mass of metaphysical rights. The decision is forced by the inevitable necessities of the case to rest with the individual. Will it be asked shall his single opinion control his conduct in the face of the combined suffrages of the nation? To this we answer unhesitatingly in the affirmative. He has no right to follow a multitude to do what seems to him to be evil. It is impossible to throw the decision of the question from the individual, no matter on what grounds he forms his decision, that decision is his own. If he yield his opinion in deference to the public voice, he is fully responsible, because the opinion of the multitude, or the decision of the Pope, as the case may be, are only the grounds of his decision, but that decision is his own. The united opinion of a large number increases the probability that they are right, and that he is wrong; but a man sins, if he does what he thinks is wrong, because others think it to be right. The freedom of thought is invincible, and no man can throw of his responsibility in the use of it.

Do we then plead for anarchy, by leaving the is not absolutely necessary to the peace of society, law subject to the opinions of each individual? it ought not to be enforced on the tender conBy no means. The idea just stated guards that conclusion. The individual decides under a double responsibility to the law of God and the law of man. For whatever may be the justice of the human law, as affected by the views of conscience, the objections of conscience do not invalidate its force. If conscience leads a man to violate the law, he must suffer the penalty, whether justly or unjustly, rather than endanger the tranquillity of the public.

science. If it be necessary, and the end can be gained at the same time an exception is made in favor of scrupulous consciences, that exception should be made. If the end of the law can only be attained by enforcing it on all indiscriminately, it must be enforced, because the safety of society itself is of more consequence than the rights of any individual or class in society. It is here a contest between the right of the person and the right of the government, a conflict of rights, a state of If, therefore, there be a conflict between the affairs peculiar to a world where the whole moral laws of the land and the dictates of duty, what system has been jarred by the existence of moral should be the course to be pursued? Do the disorders. In such a conflict the most important ethics of the Bible permit every man, whose con- right must prevail. Thus taxes for the supply of science becomes wounded by the acts of the leg-military stores are necessary to the safety of soislature, to raise the standard of seditious resist-ciety; but the law for raising supplies for military ance to the constituted authorities of the law ? purposes, ought to make a formal exception in By no manner of means. When the requirement behalf of the Quakers, who are conscientiously of the legislature is a palpable violation of the divine commands, the duty of reverence to lawful authority is still binding, and the citizen is bound, while avoiding all offence against God, to uphold the dignity of the government. The scriptures no where authorize a violent and seditious resistance to law. But where there is really an issue between a law of man and a command of God, it is the duty of the citizen to decline obedience to the precept of the former, and if it is required he must quietly submit to its penalty. Should he resist the law by violence, he would be guilty of a high crime in perilling the interests of society in defence of an individual right however sacred. The safety and tranquillity of society is of far more importance than any mere personal affairs, and no man can lawfully insist upon an individual right, that is incompatible with the general safety. He has no right to obey the law, because it would offend against God and pollute his conscience. He has no right to resist it, because it would endanger the peace of society. The only alternative is to endure the penalty. A man may lawfully become a martyr to his sense of duty, but he has no right to become a rebel against the laws of morality. Such is the line marked out for conscience, when it comes in conflict with law.

opposed to the whole system. But if the necessities of the times should demand supplies which could only be raised by a general assessment, then the right of the Quaker to the protection of his conscience would give way to the commanding exigencies of the hour. The law must be upheld; yet conscience must be saved from pollution; and the only way for the accomplishment of the double purpose, is the infliction on one side and the endurance on the other, of the penalty of the law. This is the very utmost extent allowed by duty to the individual in contravening the laws of the land. The majesty of law must be honored either by compliance with its precept or submission to its penalty. In deciding upon an issue of this description, the law is by no means properly considered as constituting itself a judge over conscience, but simply as exercising its judgment as to what is demanded by its own necessities, and the means to supply them.

We have just considered the general principles which should control the conduct of conscience towards the law, and the law towards conscience. We purpose now to glance very briefly at the moral law which controls both law and conscience. The argument just closed supposes the decisions of conscience to have been already formed, and had reference to their practical application. The present inquiry respects the rights of conscience to form these decisions adverse to the laws of the legislature.

Now the question arises, what should be the proper course of the government towards conscience? If the law is absolutely necessary to the existence of society, it must be enforced at every hazard. In this conflict between con- If the requisition of law condemned by conscience and the law, the superior necessities of science be a real offence against God, of course the safety of society, gives the government the the mora! sense is not only justified in protesting, right of a negative control over conscience, anal- but is bound to protest against it. All requireogous to the right to tax. By this negative con-ments of obedience to such a law are void, and trol, we mean the right to apply the penalty of if enforced are oppression.

the law, when its precept is violated. If the law

If the law embody no trespass, but is conceived