p. 5 | Conscience and the Law by L. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Jul 20, 1905

Conscience and the Law

By L. A. S.

The question whether all laws that get upon the statute-books ought to be obeyed by the people and enforced by the government officials, is considered and answered in the affirmative in an article contributed to the Independent by Governor Joseph W. Folk, of Missouri. Governor Folk's record in his State as a foe of political corruption, entitles him to the respect of all lovers of good government, and gives weight to his views regarding the enforcement of law.

Nevertheless it is not true, and no man's dictum can make it true, that a mandate ought to be obeyed simply because it has attained to the dignity of a municipal, State, or federal statute. A law may be of such a character that it is not entitled to obedience. If legislative assemblies were always free from corruption; if laws always found their way to the statute-books untainted in the making, and were always passed in the interests of the people, and never to serve private interests at the expense of the people, the question would be different. But the subserviency of legislatures and city councils to the dictates of the political boss or the ring working for its own selfish ends, has become notorious.

It is true that justice ought always to be enforced by the law; but this is a different thing from saying that any man-made statute ought always to be enforced. Every individual is bound at all times by the law of justice,—a law which is of force independently of legislatures, and was in existence before any human assemblies were convened. This is the higher law, and when a human statute runs contrary to it, the

former sets aside the latter, and not the latter the former.

The obligation to “do justice and judgment,” which every man owes to his Creator, is one from which he can never be absolved by any human authority.

The contention is made that a person can not be permitted to judge for himself which laws he will obey, and which he will disregard, because such liberty would immediately result in anarchy. But anarchy never resulted from a conscientious effort on the part of any individual or class to observe that law of right which antedates all human law, and from which all just human laws derive their force. Anarchy never results from an acknowledgment of the higher sovereignty of Him whose kingdom ruleth over all. If there is a higher law than man's, then it is the worst anarchy to disregard that law to render obedience to a human enactment.

The laws of man and the law of God ought never to conflict; yet history is full of instances where they have conflicted, and the assertion made upon one such occasion—“We ought to obey God rather than men”—has always been vindicated in human experience.

The anarchist sets up his own will against that of the state. He acknowledges no will and authority higher than his own. Anarchy is a denial of sovereignty. The Christian sometimes disregards the law, but never to set up his own will and authority against that of the state; never to deny the right of sovereignty, but expressly to acknowledge the sovereignty of One who is supreme in power and authority.

To say that every man-made statute whatsoever ought to be obeyed so long as it remains unrepealed, is to deny that there is any higher sovereignty in the universe than man's.

Civil government rests upon law, and upon the enforcement of law. In an ideal government all the laws would be perfectly enforced. But an ideal government would be more than this; it would be a government in which all the laws were just.

There is a realm of civil government, and there is a realm of conscience. The inviolability of the latter is the very essence of individual liberty. There can be no substitute for conscience. Nothing could be worse for the individual, nothing worse for society, than the destruction of conscience. It is those who have suffered the loss of conscience that make the most trouble for the officers and the courts of law.

Civil government rests upon civil law, but there is a deeper foundation than this. As confidence is the basis of all trade, lying underneath all the means and agencies by which trade is carried on, so that nothing so quickly and surely brings business paralysis as a loss of public confidence; so underneath all civil laws upon the statute-books is the regard for right and justice which is inherent in some degree in every human heart. Here is the realm of conscience. Let this be lost from the assets of the nation, and not all the laws that exist or that might be passed could hold civil government together for a single day. There would be immediate and complete anarchy.

Governor Folk says: “The greatest danger to every government lies in the fact that laws that are made are not enforced as they are made.” But all history, including current history, testifies that governments become weak and fall, not from failure to enforce their laws, but because of corruption in the lawmaking and governing power. There is anarchy in Russia to-day; the spectacle of it holds the attention of the world. Is it because the laws of that country have not been enforced?—No; but rather because there has been an enforcement of unjust laws, contrary to human liberty and to natural, God-given rights. The French Revolution proceeded from similar causes.

Governor Folk applies his argument to the enforcement of the Sunday law, and thereby demonstrates its fallacious character. “A great deal has been said in Missouri in the last few weeks,” he says, “about what is commonly called the ‘lid.’ The ‘land of the lid’ means the land of law. When people talk about taking off the ‘lid’ on Sunday, they mean to let the law be violated with impunity. . . . If we take the ‘lid’ off of the Sunday law, can we not with equal propriety take the ‘lid’ off of the larceny statute and off of the murder statute?” Sabbath observance is plainly a matter of conscience, having its origin in the command of Him who is lord of the conscience, to “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.” It is no business of the state either to interpret or to enforce that command. To render Sabbath observance to the state is to make a god of the state, but the final account of every person must be rendered not to that god, but to the God who created heaven and earth and rested the seventh day, and because of this sanctified that day and made it holy.

Thus it has already happened in every age, and is still true to-day, that those who have most regard for the law of God have sometimes felt obliged to set aside the law of man; not as setting themselves up above the state, or from any lack of respect for the state and its laws, but as an acknowledgment of a higher Sovereignty to which they owe primary allegiance. And it has always been true, and is true still, that such citizens are the best citizens the state can have.

The menace of anarchy arises not so much from the disregard of law by the people, as from the disregard of justice by those entrusted with the enactment and interpretation of the laws. Let it once come to be believed by the people that there is a privileged class in this country in whose interest laws are enacted by the legislatures and interpreted by the courts, and respect for law in this country will be at an end. The present tendency of things is altogether too strongly in this direction. L. A. S.