The July 4, 1835 edition of The Liberator contained an editorial by William Lloyd Garrison that I think is something of a lost treasure. It is written in response to an article written by James T. Austin then Attorney General of Massachusetts and perhaps best remembered today for his biography on Elbridge Gerry. In the article to which Garrison is responding, Austin had attacked the abolitionist and the temperance movements, claiming that obedience to the law and legality where the safest modes of action and the safest ways of determining if something was right. Garrison devastates this argument by refuting it with obviously evil things that are legal. More than that though, Garrison makes the argument that the law of man itself is corrupt and that the only law that should guide a man’s life is the Law of God. In doing so Garrison, going to the scriptures themselves as his foundation, argues that where there is no conflict between the law of man and the Law of God then there is no problem but where the law of man demands one thing and the Law of God demands another then the Christian will always obey God first and face whatever the consequences be for defying the law of man. Below are excerpts from this masterful work on Christian nonviolence and civil disobedience.
The learned gentleman [James T. Austin] asks-“Can there be a safer mode of determining what is right or wrong than, is it lawful?” (i.e. does the law of the State or nation authorize or forbid it?) We answer in the affirmative. A resort to the Bible is the only sure method of coming to a just determination. Does Mr. Austin mean to make the statute-book of the Commonwealth paramount in obligation to the statute book of Jehovah? Let us try the pertinency of his question by a few points of illustration. In India, they burn widows upon the funeral pile, and cast living infants into the Ganges, and bow down in worship to stocks and stones, and drag the car of Juggernaut over the bodies or prostrate men and women, –lawfully. If the Attorney General were in India, denouncing these horrid practices, might he not be asked by these idolaters, -“Can there be a safer mode of determining what is right or wrong, than, is it lawful?” … We forbear multiplying examples, although it might be instructive to turn back to past ages, and recapitulate all the persecutions, heresies, indulgencies and practices, which have obtained among mankind, lawfully-not forgetting to mention, that even in this renowned Commonwealth, Quakers, wizards, and witches have been lawfully hanged, as equally pernicious and damnable in their influence and profession.
Now we regard the interrogation of the Attorney General as savoring of practical atheism and treason against the government of God; and we maintain that the test of right or wrong which he proposes is a nose of wax that may be moulded into any shape-is full of uncertainty and danger, varying with every government and every nation-is the substitution of human fallibility for divine infallibility, the wisdom of man for the wisdom of God, and the policy of the world for the obedience of the gospel-and is now, and has ever been, the fruitful source of delusion. error and violence, the refuge of tyranny, the weapon of proscription, and the rack of martyrdom. We further maintain that it is because human enactments are consulted and obeyed, rather than the infallible code of laws given by the Almighty, so many hurtful customs and practices abound in [every] community. The doctrine, that what the law allows is right, and what it disallows is wrong is a prevalent heresy which cannot be too soon repudiated.
“Can there be a safer mode of determining what is right or wrong, than, is it lawful?” Can there be a more dangerous mode? In some countries, practices are lawful which, in other countries, would bring men to the gibbet. By what rule of action was the foreign slave trade once prosecuted? The law. By what rule is the domestic slave trade now carried on? The law. What is the plea of the slaveholder for enslaving his equal in worth, dignity, and immortality? The law. What obstructs the progress of emancipation? The law. What is the justification of the rum-seller and distiller? The law. What does the tithe-gatherer plead in England? The law. [In England in the 1800s people were forced to pay tithes to the local church by law.] What justifies the royal plunderers of God’s poor in that country? The law. And this, forsooth, is the safest mode for determining what is right or wrong!
Now, I care not what the law allows me to do, or what it forbids my doing. If I violate it, I will submit to the penalty, unresistingly, in imitation of Christ, and his apostles, and the holy martyrs. But to learn my duty, I will not consult any other statute book than THE BIBLE; and whatsoever requirement of man I believe is opposed to the spirit of the gospel, I will at all hazards disobey. Every man is bound to understand the laws of the country in which he lives but he is not bound to obey any one of them, if it conflict with his allegiance to his Maker-and he alone is to judge in this manner, according to the monitions of his conscience and the dictates of his understanding. Who made the laws? Fallible men. Is a fallible standard the best by which to try human actions? The hues of the law arc like those of the chameleon, ever shifting and evanescent. Human laws, as all history shows, waste like pillars of sand, or change their aspects with times and circumstances. Are they then to be trusted or obeyed in all cases? God forbid. It was not so under the Jewish dispensation-it is not so under the gospel.
- “… the Levites caused the people to understand the law: and the people stood in their place. So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading. Also day by day, from the first day unto the last day, he read in the book of the LAW OF GOD.” (Nehemiah 8:7-8, 18)
- “His delight is in the LAW OF THE LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. …The LAW OF THE LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The STATUES OF THE LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the COMMANDMENT OF THE LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. …The LAW OF HIS God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide.” (Pslams 1:2, 19:7-8, 37:31)
- “For the COMMANDMENT is a lamp; and the LAW is light” (Proverbs 6:23)
- “Out of Zion shall go forth the LAW, and the WORD OF THE LORD from Jerusalem. And he shall judge AMONG THE NATIONS, and shall rebuke many people …To the LAW and to the TESTIMONY: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them … the isles shall wait for his LAW. …The Lord is our LAWGIVER …The Lord will magnify the LAW and make it honorable. … Hearken unto ME, ye that know righteousness, the people in whose heart is MY LAW; fear ye not the reproach of men, neither be ye afraid of their revilings. (Isaiah 2:3-4, 8:20, 33:22, 42: 4 & 21, 51:7)
- “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put MY LAW in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)
- “The LAW is holy, and just, and good…. the LAW is spiritual” (Romans 7:12,14)
Now we ask, “can there be a safer mode of determining what is right or wrong, than is it”-in accordance with the LAW OF GOD? All human enactments which run counter to this law are necessarily null and void in his sight. I have dwelt somewhat minutely upon this point and yet not so copiously as I wish, because it relates to an important branch of moral science, nay, to the whole question of human authority, obligation, and obedience.
It is an extraordinary declaration of the Attorney General when he affirms that the mobs, club law, and arson are the “legitimate result of the principle of declaring that to be wrong which the law tolerates.” If this be true the necessary inference is either there cannot be a wrong law or, if such a law exists, it is in the highest degree of criminality to declare it wrong and it is right to obey it and take advantage of it, even to the degradation and ruin of our species.
…Abolitionists have every where “declared that to be wrong which the law tolerates,” respecting the oppression of our fellow creatures. And it is useless to deny that mobs, club-law, and arson” have been the consequences of their declaration. But who resorted to these vile agencies? Why, the enemies of abolition! And who were the victims? Slave-holders? Oh, no; Abolitionists! Brick-bats have been hurled at their heads, their dwelling houses sacked, and their property burnt in the streets, while they have barely escaped with their lives. But nobody has harmed the hair of a slave-holder; not even of a slave-trader! It seems, therefore, that to arraign those as criminals who act according to the law is to stir up the mob against whom? Against the accuser and in defence of the accused!
…From the beginning the law has been on the side of the distiller, the importer, and the vender, yet the Temperance reformation has swept over the land, and over the seas, and is traversing Europe, and will circumnavigate the globe …. But it is the opinion of the Attorney General, “the best friends of temperance are those who would keep it within the strict line of law.” “That’s exactly my opinion,” will be the response of every incorrigible distiller and rum seller in the land …. If we are not to travel beyond “the strict line of law” in the cause of moral reform, then the tongue is a useless machine, a gag is put into the mouth, personal freedom is lost, and human improvement is al an end. For whoever denounces a pursuit or practice which the law sanctions, necessarily impeaches the integrity of the law, and travels beyond it. And never, since the organization of human society, has a public reform been effected, without essentially altering the statute book ….
Moral right is ever paramount to legal right and may freely interrogate it. The controversy has never been with the LEGAL RIGHT of the distiller or the rum seller (for that cannot be disputed), but with his MORAL RIGHT to poison and destroy his fellow creatures. A practice may be legal, and yet as atrocious as any that was permitted by Draco’s code. At the South, it is a legal business to trade in human flesh and sinews; who disputes its legality? But will the Attorney General endorse its humanity and morality? Will he, as a man and a Christian, venture to maintain, that we have no more right to attack the domestic slave trader for carrying on his cruel business, than we have the tailor for making our clothes?
This link will lead to a more readable copy of the page if you wish to read it in whole, starting on the left side of Page 3 under the title The Trial of Rev. Mr. Cheevers.
