Revelation, Law, and Government
By L. A. S.
THE following words, which were spoken in Washington a few days ago before a committee of the United States Senate, should be of interest to readers of the REVIEW:— How can government exist if the law be not supreme? How can the law of the land be supreme if a God, known to the subject of that law, to be of infinite goodness, power, and wisdom, directly speaks to that subject of the law? Whatever the respect we accord to one who sustains to the Almighty such a relation, how can such a one participate in a man-made government? Among those who believe in present revelation from God, but one government can by right exist—a government by God, a theocracy. The speaker was ex-Representative R. W. Tayler, of Ohio, who is about to be sworn in as a United States district judge. He was speaking on the question of the admission to the United States Senate of Senator-elect Smoot, of Utah. Mr. Tayler urged the exclusion of Mr. Smoot from the Senate on the ground that the Mormon senator-elect felt bound by what he regarded as a higher law than that of the United States government. Referring to Mr. Smoot and his associates in the Mormon hierarchy, Mr. Tayler said:— I do not speak of these because they are lawless, but because they are not lawless. If it were a mere question of law-breaking, this case would not cause a ripple. The country is filled with law-breakers; the jails are filled with them. It is because the law they obey is higher than the law of the land. When man-made law comes into conflict with a higher law, Senator Smoot says he would go to another country where the law of God and man would not conflict. I am ready to admit the Mormons are not breaking the laws from a spirit of lawlessness. If they were, the question would be easy to deal with. Is there in this anything like a precedent for determining the attitude that will be taken by the government toward another class of people in this country who “believe in present revelation from God” and acknowledge the superior authority of his law over human enactments?