TENDENCIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE PRESENT AGE.
TENDENCIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE PRESENT AGE.
TENDENCIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE PRESENT AGE.
TENDENCIES AND PROPHECIES OF THE PRESENT AGE.
[Revised from the American Workman of Oct. 16, 1870.]
[Revised from the American Workman of Oct. 16, 1870.]
[Revised from the American Workman of Oct. 16, 1870.]
The subject of government and the solution of all its difficulties seem to hinge upon the question, Where does God’s government drop its sway (if it does so at all), and where does man take it up, on his own account, by inherent natural right, guaranteed to him by the law that gave him being? The only modification of this question required to be considered is, How far man is or can be the authorized, competent agent of the Almighty in working out His purposes? To solve all these questions it becomes necessary to determine what the fundamental principles of government must be, to be in harmony with the laws of God, and to adopt them and to follow them out to all their legitimate conclusions and results, discarding everything else. In such government and legislation the eternal principles of right, which are God’s laws, are in full force and effect, andman, thus far, an authorized competent agent in the administration of His decrees in the material world.
Whether a government founded or administered upon any other basis than the eternal principles of right and justice can or cannot be enduring, is a proposition the simplest mind may solve. Progress is from the lower to the higher; in its certain and irresistible march all systems and things that have risen out of the circumstances of the times to which they belong will be swept away to make room for the new and the better; but principles and self-evident truths that were contained in such systems will endure to be incorporated into all future systems.
There can be no higher form of expression than that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are “inalienable” rights toall; and, being such, it is safe to assume that it will always remain as a fundamental proposition in the organic law of this country; and legislation will be required to guide itself by it, instead of being its exponent.
Change upon change will come in the future, as it has in the past, until government will become so simplified as to have for its foundation nothing but an annunciation of general principles of justice and equity, as self-evident truths upon which all legislation must be based.
Passing, for a time, the consideration of the principles of government, it may be well to inquire into the injustice of some of its present details. All men, and women, too, arebornfree and equal, entitled to certain natural rights, which no government has the right to take from them. While every man and woman is a result of the general law of procreation, there are distinguishing points peculiar to each, which renders everyonedifferent from everyother; thus no two persons can be so precisely alike as to make their individuality the same; consequently no two persons are governed by the same internal and external mainsprings of action and influence. Let the same power and influence be exerted upon different individuals, no matter how nearly they mayresembleeach other, different results will flow from each, the character of which will be absolutely determined by the status of the development of, and the relations between the material, and spiritual elements represented in the individuals acted upon. No argument is needed to prove this proposition; and the legitimate deduction to be drawn from it is, that no judgment of the action of the individual, by others, is just that does not take into consideration all the various points in character and influence under which action is produced.
It must not be forgotten that all thought and action on the part of an individual is the legitimate result of some competent producing cause, operating by natural law. The cause being competent, the law of operation natural, and the result consequently legitimate, can another’s idea of right step in to sit in judgment over the action, and render a verdict of justice to the actor? Or, can any number of individuals determine what the demands of justice are which God himself has declared by the mouth of all His holy prophets, material and spiritual. “Judgment is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
No one can hope to escape the judgments of the eternal law, or to hide himself from God’s officers of justice; but must by them be brought before its stern, undeviating bar, to receive its unpardonable sentence. But, says the objector, this does not satisfy me, who have suffered from the offence. What if it does not satisfy you? God is satisfied; and are you greater than He, that you may question His justice? If you are not yet satisfied, God will most surely satisfy you in His own good time.
Look into your statutes, and within them, find their own stultification. They assert that no criminal shall be subjected to two trials and penalties for the same offence; but, in the face of this righteous rule, and with the positive knowledge that God has already tried, convicted and sentenced the murderer, the courts of the country take possession and control of the criminal, proceed to try, convict, condemn and hang him by the neck until he is dead. Rest assured God will not overlook this attempt of yours to forestall his judgments.
We stop here to make a broad assertion: For man to affix certain definite penalties as punishment for so-called crime is to arrogate to himself what alone belongs to God!
Stumbling-blocks are constantly found in the path of progress, against which the earnest traveler finds himself precipitated; these consist of the ideas of the past, clothed with form and expression, and which were set up by their conceivers as “guides and lights” of their times, for those who groped their way by such assistance. The earnest seeker after light finds these set up all along his path, declaring “thus far shalt thou go, and no farther;” but he, catching a glimpse of the light so bright beyond, clears the obstruction by a single bound, and goes on his way rejoicing, seldom deeming it his duty to turn upon and cast what to him was but a hindrance from the path of progress, so that others coming that way should not encounter it, who perhaps might lack the power to surmount it. “Let your light shine” so that those who come after you may be aided thereby.
A single argument upon the question of the relations between debtor and creditor, which is maintained by the present laws, will be sufficient to illustrate the whole subject of customs, authorities and laws, which are obstructions in the path of progress. The time was when imprisonment for debt was authorized by law in all the States of this land of freedom (?); but the spirit of progressive justice has been at work until but few of the States now retain this libel upon Christian civilization to disgrace their statutes. Imprisonment for debt! What good ever resulted from it? The malignity of the creditor may have satisfied itself by still further humiliating the broken spirits of the debtor; but the creditor, by such action, places it still further beyond the power of the unfortunate debtor to satisfy the demand. It is asserted, without fear of successful contradiction, that the same deleterious effects generally flow from all similar laws. All kinds of crime are but species of debt, and the same rule applies with about the same force to its laws and penalties. Imprisonment for debt has beenpretty generally abolished, but still our statute books are laden with laws to enforce collection.
A philosopher and economist, not long ago, fully investigated the relations between debtor and creditor, and the practical results of the laws now in force, and arrived at the “deliberate conclusion” that the costs attending the attempts to collect debts by legal process were three times the amount collected; not a very flattering commentary upon the policy of the law, and certainly not a paying investment to the crediting part of our community. This conclusion may at first thought appear fallacious; but when the expensiveness of courts, and the immense incomes of lawyers who practice at their bars, are considered, the afterthought will fully sustain the conclusion. It is believed by many that if there were no laws at all to enforce collection, there would be many lessbad debts; even now a debt of honor is held by public opinion to have precedence of those which thelawclaims the right to enforce.
The thinker of ordinary capacity will see at a glance that an immense amount of labor would be withdrawn from the courts, which now bears heavily upon the people, not only in the form of taxes to pay for court-houses, jury-rooms and judges’ salaries, but in the waste of time employed in jury-boxes by men dragged from their inevitable toil, and held as prisoners, while their wives and children are often suffering, and even dying, from the want of their care and attention at home. Contracts should be so well defined as to admit of no misunderstanding; and if there was no method of collection and enforcement, there would be very many less disagreements; hence, in no light in which it can be viewed, does our present system commend itself to the wisdom and justice of the reflecting; on the contrary, it throws open the door for cunning and knavery to enter to test their strength through technical evasions and blind inferences, practiced, on the unwary and ignorant by the “Quirks, theGammonsand theSnaps,” who, asvampiresof the time-honored profession they disgrace, feed and fatten upon the misfortunes of the deluded, long-forbearing, long-sufferingchildren of toil.
It may be safely asserted that a very large part ofall lawcontained within the statutes of the world, when analyzed, will present about the same deleterious results in practice and in the opportunities presented for infringement and subsequent evasion of their penalties that inevitably flow from all laws for the collection of debts.
The time has probably not yet come for the abolishment of all such laws, but the time has come when the relations of individual debtors and creditors should be left to the control of general principles of justice,which declare that a contract once fairly made, an obligation once fairly incurred, can never be discharged until satisfaction shall have been entered upon the record by divine justice.