Chapter VI

THE ATTITUDE OP THE CITIZENS TOWARD THE LAW.

Among savages, as has been said, there is no formulation of law. There is the instinct of the individual to preserve his own life, and there are rules that must be followed if the people are to survive. As has been truly said: "The love of justice is simply in the majority of men the fear of suffering injustice." The instinct of preservation and sheer necessity compel the people almost unconsciously to follow the rules of their leader.

In most patriarchal societies the fear of the god of the tribe, the overpowering influence of custom and the unswerving directness of the punishment of the man who violates it tend to prevent the development of individuality and of independent thinking; and the normal attitude of practically every person is to obey the customs and the laws, although often those laws leave to the individual a range of action not found in later civilized states. But as the sense of right and justice and the desire to promote the public welfare grow, individualism grows also. Each individual, thrown upon his own resources, learns to think and question and judge. In democratic states he learns to take upon himself the responsibility for his acts, and at length the view becomes prevalent that law exists for the benefit of society. The individual, in judging himself and his attitude toward society, feels that the law must be obeyed because obedience promotes the public welfare. Even when he believes that a law is unwise, or even unjust, he hesitates to violate it, not only because he might be punished therefor, but primarily because it has become wrong, according to his conscience, to violate a law that has been adopted by the representatives of his fellow citizens as just and beneficial. Thus the individual, in later even more than in earlier times, obeys the laws not merely from selfish, but from social and religious motives.

_Questions for Further Consideration_.

Can you name any modern laws that you think have been framed in the interests of a special social class?

Do you think that the people of to-day are recreant in their respect for or adherence to law?

What do you consider to be the value of such institutions as those at West Point and Annapolis in their influence on the enforcement of law and discipline?

When we speak of "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people," whom exactly do we mean by "people"? Does the word have the same meaning in each of these phrases?

Is it ever right to violate a law of the land? Some people contend that an individual ought to break a human law, provided that it is contrary to divine law. What is divine law? Who decides? Shall the individual decide, or is that the duty of the community? Or of the clergy? Was it right for the Abolitionists to violate the provisions of the fugitive slave law? Were this handful of men, able and conscientious as they were, as likely to be right regarding the welfare of society as the large majority of citizens whose representatives had enacted the fugitive slave law? If a person believes our tariff laws to be unjust, is it right for him to smuggle goods?

Under what circumstances, if any, is it one's duty to disobey a law of the state? Would the fact that an individual believed it his duty to violate the law justify a judge in declining to punish him? Thoreau declined to pay a tax that he believed unjust and accepted his punishment, declaring that if he paid the penalty he might thus arouse public sentiment and secure the repeal of the law. Was John Brown justified in attempting illegally to free slaves by force of arms?

In Great Britain the House of Lords--one of the law-making bodies--is also the highest court of appeal, although the judicial business is mostly done by law lords specially appointed for that purpose. Ought the same men to make and interpret the law? Why?

_Subjects for Further Study_.

(1) Origin and Growth of Hebrew Law. Hastings, _Dict. of Bible_, III, 64-67; _Ency. Bib_., III, 2714-8; Kent, _Israel's Laws and Legal Precedents_, IV, 8-15.

(2) Growth of Primitive Law. Maine, _Ancient Law_, 109-165; Wilson, _The State_, 1-29.

(3) Judicial Decisions as a Factor in the Development of Modern Law. _Prin. of Politics_, Chap. VI, Ransom, _Majority Rule and the Judiciary_.

STUDY X

THE FOUNDATIONS OF GOOD CITIZENSHIP.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.--Ex. 20:1-17.

_Parallel Readings_.

_Hist. Bible_ I, 194-198.
_Prin. of Politics_, Chap. II.
Lowell, _Essay on "Democracy."

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image.
Thou shalt not take the name of Jehovah thy God in vain.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Honor thy father and thy mother.
Thou shalt not kill.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house.--_Ex. 20:3-17_.

If ye know my commandments, happy are ye if ye do them.--Jesus.

Wherewithal shall I come before Jehovah, and bow myself before the High God? . . . He hath showed thee, Oh man, what is good; and what doth Jehovah require of thee but to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God?--Micah 6:6, 8.

Most religions are meant to be straight lines connecting two points--God and man. But Christianity has three points--God, man, and his brother--with two lines to make a right angle.--_Maltbie D. Babcock_.

So many prayers, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
When just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.
--Eva Wheeler Wilcox.