Law Cannot Make Men Moral
By Editor
"The law cannot make a man moral, but it can make him dreadfully uncomfortable when he is immoral." Well, that depends. It is true that the law cannot make a man moral; but if it is the law of the land that is referred to, as we suppose it is, then we know that a man may be terribly immoral without suffering the least inconvenience from the law. The trouble is, people have a very low standard of morality. If a man does no open violence, or cause any serious inconvenience to his neighbor, he is called a moral man; whereas, a man may do nothing for which the law could molest him, and still be as corrupt as the grave. It should be understood that civil laws cannot make men moral, and are not for the purpose of punishing immorality, but simply for the purpose of protecting the rights of people; in short, to deter men from acting in an uncivil manner.