CHAPTER LVIII.
THE LAWS OF THE NEPHITES—THE ROMAN AND NEPHITE CIVILIZATIONS—THE LAWS UNDER THE KINGS—POSITION OF THE PRIESTHOOD—SLAVERY—CRIMINAL OFFENSES.
IF THE existence of wise, just and liberal laws, administered in righteousness, be the rule by which we can judge of the true greatness of a nation and of the happiness and prosperity of its citizens, then the Nephites were a far happier and more prosperous people than were their contemporaries on the eastern continent. If this be not so, then we have not read history aright.
The Nephite nation was co-existent with the great Roman power that for so long triumphed over and crushed the surrounding people in Europa, Asia and Africa. True, Rome was founded more than a century before Lehi left Jerusalem, [9] but at the time of his exodus its growing power had scarcely begun to be felt outside of Italy. At the time that Moroni's record closed, the Nephites, as a nation, had become extinct, and the glory of the mistress of the world was rapidly fading away. Rome had been sacked by barbarians, the empire had been divided into two governments, the legs of Nebuchadnezzar's great image were forming; peoples and nations were rebelling and throwing off the iron yoke, and the idea of universal empire had become a thing of the past. [10] But how different the theory and genius of the two nations! The Nephite rulers governed by the power of just laws, the Romans by the might of the unsheathed sword. Among the former, every man was a free man, with his rights as a citizen guaranteed and protected by just laws. Among the latter, few could assert, as did the Apostle Paul, Civis Romanus Sum—I am a Roman citizen. The vast majority of the millions who formed its people were either abject allies, vanquished enemies or degraded slaves. [11] Neither of these had many rights that the Roman citizen felt himself called upon to respect. We are apt to be awed by the grand military exploits of the Roman generals, and to be dazzled with the magnificence of Rome in art and architecture, but we must recollect that the history of that city is the history of tyranny. Its power, during the greater portion of its continuance, was in the hands of the few, who used it for the interest of their class. The masses of the population were the subjects of oppression and violence.
No language could so well describe the spirit of Roman aggrandizement as that used by the Prophet Daniel when interpreting to the Babylonish king the import of the terrible image he had seen in his dream. These are his words: And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise. (Daniel ii. 40.) And thus did Rome rule the eastern world as with a rod of iron. We need not refer to the other nations that existed on the eastern continent, for the people that Rome neither conquered nor destroyed were barbarians, who, during the existence of the Nephites, filled but a small page in the world's history.
These facts are presented as worthy of the consideration of all who study the social and political condition of the great and highly-favored people who flourished on this continent for so many centuries; and we imagine the student cannot fail to be impressed with the thought that they were at least a thousand years in advance of their fellow-men in the science of true government; and in their policy find a type of the most advanced and most liberal forms of government of the present age. That this should be so, will not surprise us when we consider that they were a branch of the house of Israel, a people who enjoyed more political liberty (until their own follies had cut them off therefrom) than any of the other nations of antiquity, and that to the law of Moses they had added the divine teachings of the everlasting gospel, which in themselves are a perfect law of liberty. Further, it is a noteworthy fact which stares us in the face from the beginning to the end of the Book of Mormon, that when the people departed from gospel principles, it was then and then only that they fell into bondage, of whatever nature that bondage might be.
The political history of the Nephites may be consistently divided into five epochs:
First.—When they were governed by kings.
Second.—The republic, when they were ruled by judges and governors.