such as are merely domestic to engage its attention; affairs that demand an extent of capacity not possessed by females and minors. Let us suppose a discussion to arise in some savage tribe, or in some state already civilised, relative to a warlike expedition, or the adoption of a civil law, neither women nor minors are capable of deciding upon interests of this description; providence has destined the former for a state of existence purely domestic, while the latter have not yet attained to the plenitude of their individual existence, and the full power of their faculties. Naturally, then, and by the operation of one of those truly providential laws, in which fact and right are so very harmoniously blended, the right of suffrage does not belong to them. Capacity, then, is the principle, the necessary condition of right. And the capacity here spoken of is not merely that of intellectual development, or the possession of this or that particular faculty; it is a complex and profound whole, comprising spontaneous authority, habitual situation, and natural acquaintance with the different interests to be regulated; in fact, a certain aggregate of faculties, knowledge, and methods of action which animate the whole man, and which decide, with more certainty than his spirit alone, upon his course of conduct, and the use which he will make of power." (3) It is always a painful, sometimes a dangerous task, to be obliged to touch upon important and highly debated points, without being able to give and develope the whole; for it is not agreeable to be misunderstood on such topics. I can of course not explain my whole view of governments, &c., but I may be allowed to add at least, that I consider it a principle in politics that the right of voting, if it exist at all, ought to be extensive, and not restricted, or it will work far more mischief than good. CHAPTER II. Obedience to the Laws.-How high the Greeks esteemed it.-Obedience to Laws one of Man's Prerogatives. Absolute Obedience impossible.-Ad Impossibilia Nemo Obligatur.-Ad Turpia Nemo Obligatur. Viscount Orthes. Unlawful Demands made by lawful Authority.-High Importance of the Judiciary with reference to Obedience to the Law. Not all that is not prohibited may be done by the Citizen, any more than all that is positively permitted.-Penalties are not equivalents of crime. --Malum in se, Malum prohibitum. Is the distinction essential, and can we found any Rule of Action upon it? The Question of Obedience to Laws a Question of Conflict-Obedience in the Army and Navy.-Articles of War. -Obedience in the Civil Service.-How far is the Citizen bound to obey the Laws?-Justifiable Disobedience.-Necessary and morally demanded Disobedience.-Non-compliance with the Laws, or passive Resistance. - Active Resistance.-Armed Resistance. Insurrection. Revolution. -Resistance formerly considered lawful and received in the Charters. -Mobs and Moblaw, so called.-Duty of Informing;-in the Officer; in the Citizen at large.-Professional Informers for Rewards - Secret Police.-Dilatores and Mouchards. The obligation of informing against intended or committed Offences. XV. "STRANGER, tell the Lacedæmonians, that we lie here, in obedience to their laws." (1) This was the simple inscription to commemorate the heroic and conscious devotion of the faithful band of Leonidas at Thermopylæ; and in which a nation of peculiar sagacity, and promptitude of mind as well as ardor of soul for liberty, a nation with whom "freedom was what the sun is; the most brilliant and most useful object of creation-a passion, an instinct," thought to express the highest acknowledgment of a deed, which every Greek remembered with national pride. It was not merely the happy conceit of an individual; it was the true expression of the public spirit. (2) Of all that was noble and great in this patriotic act, the noblest and greatest seemed to them, that the gallant citizens had been obedient to the laws and their country, even unto death. Youthful reader, whose noble and happy lot it is to be born in a free country-an heir to the laws of liberty, weigh well this inscription, as a choice inheritance bequeathed by history, a simple sentence, in which one of the noblest nations of the earth has concentrated its lively spirit and dear experience, a lesson for every one who cherishes freedom, and means to make it prosper, as far as in him lies, as the best cause of mankind. (1) Herodotus, vii, 228. (2) Simonides and Æschylus competed for the honor of composing the inscription, decreed by the national council of the Amphictyons; the one proposed by the former was adopted. The private character of Simonides, which some have impeached, (Arist. Ethics, 4, 1, 27, and others,) has nothing to do with the truth of the spirit expressed by this inscription, so great in its simplicity. XVI. To make, acknowledge and obey laws, is one of the high prerogatives as well as duties of man among all the animate beings of the visible creation. Obeying a law, in this case, means the willing our actions to conform to laws, that is, rules in which principles, as applied to a class of cases, are pronounced. The individual himself as well as society at large stand in need of laws; without them there would be physical and moral disorder. The individual who does not adopt general laws of conduct or principles of action, is exposed to all the dangers of being carried away by impulses, which may arise from causes wholly unconnected with what is good, right or wise, by selfishness and vices; and society does not only stand in need of laws in order to avoid violence and consequent suffering, but also because without laws society would lose its moral character, man would forfeit his destiny as a social beingcivilisation, that produce of united exertion, social advancement and universal contribution, would be impossible. Man is wholly man only in society; society is what it ought to be only through laws; laws are virtually laws only when obeyed-therefore man's destiny requires obedience to laws. Obedience to the laws then is necessary, for without their being followed, they are no longer laws in essence, because no longer rules of action. Habitual disregard of laws in a society not only produces confusion and clashing of action, but it leads to a want of energy, mutual reliance and public spirit, as well as a want of manly independence in the individual. It invigorates the soul, lends energy and gives precision of action, and promotes a general feeling of right, if the individuals strictly obey the laws they have chosen to obey. Few things promote more the formation of a manful character and a deeply seated sense of justice in the young, than decisive and good laws or precepts, strictly acted out. Even the severest laws, if but clearly pronounced and strictly enforced, may leave some feeling of independence; but dependence upon humor gives an insuperable feeling of slavishness or dependency. He who obeys laws only as so many insulated regulations, depriving him of more or less individual liberty which he has given up for the public good, has not penetrated to that high degree of civic sense, which makes the obedience to the laws an inspiring cause of noble hearts. Yet we have seen that man cannot divest himself of his moral individuality and responsibility; the will of another cannot virtually become his own will, and that, therefore, absolute obedience is impossible, and were it possible, immoral. Every approach to it becomes in the same degree immoral. Absolute obedience can be claimed for the commandments of the deity alone; but even here it must be observed that the evidence that such commands do proceed from the deity is to be judged of by the individual; reason and conscience must decide upon the character of the authority, which demands compliance with the command, presented as coming from the deity. A law presented by Mahometans as a divine law would not be obeyed by christians in Turkey, at least not as a divine law. In all matters between man and man absolute obedience would destroy the moral as well as the jural ground on which their relations are founded. Nevertheless, passion as well as temerity of partial reasoning, have repeatedly induced man to claim for some authority or other absolute obedience, in ecclesiastic spheres as well as political. I have stated already that it seems to me to be one of our obligations to pay serious and particular attention to any act or institution in the whole range of history, or our own observation, in which a principle, virtue, error or vice has been most consistently carried out. In the one case, we become acquainted with a degree of perfection, perhaps unattainable at the times we live in, yet worthy of being approached as much as possible; in the other case we see the principle acted out in all its hideousness, and therefore the danger increasing |