Only Right is Duty

International Religious Liberty Association · Chicago, Illinois · Jun 28, 1900

FromThe American Sentinel, The Sentinel of Liberty, Vol. 15, No. 25.

Only Right is Duty.

A Boston paper very truthfully remarks that “patriotism, in war times, being manifested simultaneously by two opposing nations—the just and the unjust—is therefore not necessarily a virtue.” This being so, “patriotism” ought always to be secondary to love of principle. But what then would become of the sentiment: “My country; may she ever be right. But right or wrong, my country.”

The fact is that a country in the wrong is no better than an individual in the wrong. Both officers and men often feel perfectly justified in doing acts of injustice, acts which they know to be unjust, simply because commanded so to do by their superiors, or by “the government.” They excuse themselves by saying, “We only did our duty.” But how can it ever possibly be any man’s duty to do wrong? It cannot be. “Strictly considered, all duty is owed originally to

God only.” Nothing can be duty in any proper sense that is not right. It can never be duty for a sheriff to execute an individual whom he believes to be innocent of the crime for which he was sentenced. But what can he do? Resign his office. And this he will do if he is a God-fearing man rather than do an act of injustice even in obedience to an edict of the courts. It is the individual and not the court or the state that must answer at the bar of God.