It is now easy to see what are the Safeguards of society, the things which promote the end and aim of society,—the development of the body and spirit of all men after their law,—and thus help attain the purpose of individual life. I will mention three of these safeguards, in the order of their importance.
First of all, is Righteousness in the People: a religious determination to keep the law of God at all hazards; a sacred and inflexible reverence for right; a determined habit of fidelity each to his own conscience. This, of course, implies a hatred of wrong; a religious and determined habit of disobeying and resisting every thing which contradicts the law of God, of disobeying what is false to this and our conscience. There is no safeguard for society without this. It is to man what impenetrability, with the other primary qualities, is to matter. All must begin with the integral atoms, with the individual mind and conscience; all be tried by that test, personal integrity, at last. What is false to myself I must never do,—at no time, for no consideration, in nowise. This is the doctrine of the higher law; the doctrine of allegiance to God; a doctrine which appears in every form of religion ever taught in the world; a doctrine admitted by the greatest writers on the foundation of human law, from Cicero to Lord Brougham. Even Bentham comes back to this. I know it is now-a-days taught in the United States, that, if any statute is made after the customary legal form, it is morally binding on all men, no matter what the statute may be; that a command to kidnap a black man and sell him into slavery, is as much morally binding as a command for a man to protect his own wife and child. A people that will practically submit to such a doctrine is not worthy of liberty, and deserves nothing but law, oppressive law, tyrannical law; and will soon get what it deserves. If a people has this notion, that they are morally bound to obey any statute legally made, though it conflict with public morals, with private conscience, and with the law of God, then there is no hope of such a people; and the sooner a tyrant whips them into their shameful grave, the better for the world. Trust me, to such a people the tyrant will soon come. Where the carcass is thither will the vultures be gathered together. Let no man put asunder the carrion and the crow. So much for the first and indispensable safeguard.
The next is derivative therefrom, Righteousness in the Establishments of the People. Under this name I include three things, namely, institutions, constitutions, and statutes. Institutions are certain modes of operation, certain social, ecclesiastical, or political contrivances for doing certain things. Thus an agricultural club is a social institution to help farming; a private school is a social institution for educating its pupils; a church is an ecclesiastical institution for the promotion of religion; an aristocracy is a political institution for governing all the people by means of a few, and for the sake of a few; a congress of senators and representatives is a legislative institution for making statutes; a jury of twelve men is a judicial institution to help execute the statutes; universal suffrage is a democratic institution for ruling the State.
Constitutions are fundamental rules of conduct for the nation, made by the highest human authority in the land, and only changeable thereby, determining what institutions shall be allowed, how administered, by whom and in what manner statutes shall be made.
Statutes are particular rules of conduct to regulate the action of man with man, of individuals with the State, and of the State with individuals.
Statutes are amenable to the constitutions; the constitutions to the institutions; they to the people; all subjectively to the conscience of the individual, and objectively to the conscience of God.
Establishments are the machinery which a people contrives wherewith to carry out its ideas of the right or the expedient. In the present state of mankind, they are indispensable to accomplish the purpose of individual life. There are indeed a few men who for their good conduct, after they are mature, require no human laws whatever. They regulate themselves by their idea of right, by their love of truth, of justice, of man and God. They see the law of God so clear that they need no prohibitive statutes to restrain them from wrong. They will not lie nor steal, though no statutes forbid, and all other men both lie and steal; not if the statutes command falsehood and theft. These men are saints. The wealth of Athens could not make Aristides unjust. Were all men like Jesus of Nazareth, statutes forbidding wrong would be as needless as sails to a shark, a balloon to a swallow, or a railroad to the lightning of heaven. This is always a small class of men, but one that continually increases. We all look to the time when this will include all men. No man expects to find law books and courts in the kingdom of heaven.
Then there is a class, who need these statutes as a well-known rule of conduct to encourage them to do right, by the assurance that all other men will likewise be made to do so, even if not willing. They see the law of God less clear and strong, and need human helps to keep it. This class comprises the majority of mankind. The court-house helps them, though they never use it; the jail helps them, though never in it. These are common men. They are very sober in Connecticut; not very sober in California.