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then no right to govern; and then no government. To make the law depend for its validity on the assent of the governed is, then, the denial of all government. But government exists by divine right. It has from God the right to command. Then it is not under the necessity of entreating or requesting the subject to be so complacent as to obey. The law, then, is complete, the moment it is enacted and promulgated by the proper authority. If the law is then complete, the subject has no assent to give or withhold, no judgment to form, no decision to take, but that to obey.

Nevertheless, there is a sense, in this country, and perhaps in all countries, in which it is true that the assent of the governed is essential to the validity of the law; but this is the assent they give in their quality of electors, through the medium of their representatives in enacting the law, not an assent which they give as subjects to the law after it is enacted and promulgated. The distinction is obvious and important. It is only in our quality of electors, through the medium of our representatives, that we have any legislative authority, any assent, to give or to withhold. But in this quality we have already assented to the law, otherwise it could not have been enacted, since there is no power with us but the people in this quality and through this medium that does or can make the law. Having thus assented, nay, enacted the law, we have no more assent to give, and it would be absurd to seek, after this, the assent of the people in their capacity of simple individuals, in which they are simply subjects, and have no legislative voice whatever. Having spoken once in our legislative capacity, as electors, through our representatives, we must obey, till, by speaking again in the same capacity and through the same medium, we repeal the law. That is, when the people have made the law, they must obey it, till they, through the forms through which they made it, repeal it.

But laws may undoubtedly be unjust. Am I bound to obey unjust laws? We will let St. Thomas answer this question for us. "Laws imposed by human authority may be either just or unjust. If they are indeed just, they bind in conscience, by the eternal law from which they are derived, according to Prov. viii. 15,- Per me reges regnant, et legum conditores justa decernunt.' They are just when they ordain what is for the common good, when enacted by an authority which does not exceed its powers, and when they distribute in equal proportions the burdens they impose upon the subjects for the

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common good. For, since each man is a part of the multitude, every man belongs to the multitude in that which he is and in that which he has, in like manner as the part belongs in what it is to the whole, and hence nature allows a certain detriment to the part that the whole may be saved. Consequently, laws of this kind, which proportion equally the burdens imposed, are just, bind in conscience, and are legal laws. But laws may be unjust in two senses. 1. By contrariety to hu man good, in the respects just mentioned. They are unjust, when a prince imposes burdens on his subjects, not for the common good, but rather for his own glory or cupidity, when they exceed the commission or the authority which ordains them, and when the burdens they impose, even though for the common good, are not equally proportioned. Such acts are violences rather than laws, as St. Augustine says, De Lib. Arb., I., c. 5, Lex esse non videtur, quæ justa non fuerit.' Laws of this kind do not bind in conscience, unless, perchance, for the avoiding of scandal or disorder, for which a man must forego his own rights, according to St. Matt. v. 40, 41, — Qui angariaverit te mille passus, vade cum eo alia duo ; et qui abstulerit tibi tunicam, da ei et pallium.' 2. Laws may be unjust by contrariety to divine good, as the edicts of tyrants commanding idolatry or other things forbidden by the divine law. Such laws are to be observed in no sense whatever, since, Acts iv., it is necessary to obey God rather than men." *

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The principle is, that all just laws bind in conscience; but, with regard to unjust laws, we must distinguish between those which are unjust because they ordain what is repugnant to human good, and those which are unjust because they ordain what is repugnant to the divine law. The latter do not bind, but we are bound in conscience to refuse to obey them at all hazards; the former, when they only require us to suffer wrong, and if they go farther and command us to do wrong, they are identical with the latter, we may obey, and are bound to obey, when our disobedience would cause scandal or breed disturbance in the state.

But who is to determine whether the laws are just or unjust? Not absolutely in all cases the state, for that would make the distinction between just and unjust laws nugatory, since the state, in enacting a law, decides that it is just; not the individual, for that would make the law depend on the as

* Summa, 1. 2, Ques. 96, a. 4.

sent of the subject for its legality, which we have seen is not the fact, and cannot be the fact, if we are to have government at all. There is here, to many minds, no doubt, a serious difficulty; but, without considering it in a light which would involve a controversy foreign to our present purpose, we may answer the question by laying down the principle, that authority is always presumptively in the right, and the law primâ facie evidence of justice. The onus probandi rests on the shoulders of the subject, who must prove the law to be unjust, before he can have the right to refuse it obedience. For this

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his own private judgment or conviction can never suffice. he can allege nothing against the law but his own individual persuasion of its injustice, he is bound, by his general obligation to obey the laws, to obey it. No one, then, can ever be justified in disobeying on his own private authority. He must sustain his refusal to obey by an authority higher than his own, higher than that of the state, or else he will be guilty of resisting the ordinance of God, and, therefore, purchase damnation to himself. Hence, where there is no infallible authority to decide, the subject must always presume the law to be just, unless it manifestly and undeniably ordains what is wrong in itself, and prohibited by the law of God.

This rule may strike some as too stringent, but, if examined closely, it will be found to allow all the liberty to the subject compatible with the existence of government. If, for instance, the government should command me to lie, to steal, to rob, to bear false witness, or any thing else manifestly against the law of nature or the law of God, I should hold myself bound to disobey, and to take the consequences of my disobedience. So, also, if my government should declare war against an unoffending state, for the purpose of stripping it of its territory, destroying its independence, and reducing its people to slavery, or for the purpose of overthrowing the Christian religion and substituting a false religion, and should command me to aid it in its nefarious designs, I should hold myself bound in conscience to refuse at all hazards; for such a war would be manifestly and palpably unjust, not in my judgment only, but in that of all sound-minded men. Such a case would be clear, and duty would be so plain that no question could arise. But in a case less clear and manifest, in a case where there was room for doubt, for an honest difference of opinion, I should hold myself bound to obey the orders of the government, for conscience' sake, leaving the responsibility with it, sure of incurring no blame myself.

In conclusion, we say, that, though we have defended the lawfulness of war, when declared by the sovereign authority, for a just cause, and prosecuted with right intentions, we have no sympathy with that restless and ambitious spirit that craves war for the sake of excitement or glory. Only a stern necessity can ever justify the resort to arms, and that necessity does not in reality often exist. In most cases, the war, with a little prudence, a little forbearance, a little use of reason, might be avoided; and a terrible responsibility rests upon rulers when they unnecessarily plunge two nations in the horrors of war. Yet it belongs to the sovereign authority to judge of the necessity of the war, no less than to declare it; and when not manifestly and undeniably for that which is wrong in itself, the subject is bound to obey, and give his life, if need be, for his country. But the subject can, with a good conscience, fight only under the national banner. He can never justly fight under the blood-red flag of the factionist or of the revolutionist. The loyal subject hears no call to the battle-field but that of his sovereign. This sovereign he hears, by him he stands, for him he is ready to fight against any enemies, from within or from without. But there he stops. He can join with no faction, with no party, against the legitimate authorities of his country. No dreams of free institutions, of popular government, of an earthly paradise, can make him raise the parricidal hand, and seek by violence to overthrow legitimate government, and introduce a new political order. No, dearly as we love liberal institutions, and as ready as we are to spill our heart's blood in their defence where they are the legal order, we would rush to the side of authority, and spill the same blood against them, if there were an attempt by violence to introduce them. True freedom is only where the law is supreme, and the law is supreme only where the people reverence it, and feel themselves bound by their duty to God to obey it.

We are not unaware that we have, in the latter part of this article, given utterance to views not precisely in harmony with those commonly set forth by the American newspaper press; yet we are sure that we have only uttered the sentiments of the sound portion of the American people. At bottom the American people are loyal, and, though of late perverted and carried away by a senseless clamor about liberty, and democracy, and the rights of the individual, they have naturally a deep reverence for law, and the disposition to obey it when it is against them as well as when it is in their favor. The cloud which

has been gathering and rolling its dark and massy folds over us, we trust, will yet break and disperse, and permit us to joy as we behold once more the clear blue sky. The strong current of good sense which belongs to our national character will succeed, we trust, in carrying away the froth and foam which have collected on its surface, here and there in the eddies, and leave the waters clear and limpid as our fathers wished them. For the last twenty years we have been indulging in speculations foreign to our national character, and have lost sight of the real nature of our institutions. The fathers, one after one, disappeared, and left us to a new generation, ardent, ignorant, conceited, and headstrong, full of sound and fury, who hurried us on nearly to the edge of the precipice. But this new generation is now older than it was, has profited somewhat by experience, and what remains of it becomes more sober, and seeks to repair the mischief it has done; and, after a few more rash experiments and failures, we trust, under a favoring Providence, we shall be able to exhibit an example of a loyal people, free because loyal, and prosperous because free. we have spoken severely, it has not been in bitterness nor in despair.

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Of the actual war in which we are engaged with Mexico we have purposely refrained from expressing any opinion. We will now only add, that, whatever may be our own private convictions of the justice or expediency of that war, or of the wisdom or energy displayed by the War Department in its prosecution, it does not come within the category of those wars which are manifestly repugnant to the law of God. Ostensibly, at least, it is undertaken for a justifiable cause, and prosecuted only for the sake of a just and lasting peace. We may wish for the speedy return of peace, but we are bound to render the government, in carrying on the war, all the services it commands; and no citizen can refuse to do so, without failing in his obedience to law, and his duty to his country. Yet we may be permitted to express the hope, that our government, in adjusting the terms of peace, will remember the distracted state and weakness of Mexico, and show its moderation. It may, undoubtedly, demand indemnification for wrongs received and for expenses incurred, but let it be generous, forbearing. We have territory enough, and it is more for our interest as a nation to sustain Mexico in her independence and nationality than to absorb her, if we could, in the Union.

However this may be, let us never forget that there is a

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