Lawlessness

“ The mania for duelling, again, which was now at its height, was an indication that the prevailing spirit of lawlessness was not confined to the masses. When hereditary lawgivers, and even Cabinet ministers, could find no better way of settling their differences than by calling each other out, little wonder that the rank and file followed suit, and took the law into their own hands. ”

“ The plethora of individual rights which we have in this nation of free men is undoubtedly a source of our strength, but in a sense, is also a source of, or at least the catalyst for, significant lawlessness that pervades our society. ”

“ Forsaken by all who should have been their natural allies, they stand alone against the lawlessness which has grown up in consequence of universal indolence and cowardice; and if, after all their sacrifices, they earn the satisfaction of having remained true to themselves, they reap, instead of gratitude, ridicule and scorn. The responsibility for this state of things falls not upon those who transgress the law, but on those who have not the courage to assert it. ”

“ For here in our own hemisphere our country's history continues to be rife with lawlessness at the bidding of a vicious sentiment, and in some sections it is the rule and not the exception. Free from the restraint of law-abiding localities in the States, the American adventurer of lawless propensity will have free reign in bullying and oppressing, and probable partiality in the administration of the law. ”

“ Unless the employing and governing classes meet their demands halfway, gunpowder and dynamite pretty surely lie ahead. Will the spirit of lawlessness spread? Ought we to slacken our process of lawmaking lest we make the yoke too hard to bear? As a matter of fact, it is through more laws, better laws, and a better mechanism for punishing infraction of laws, that we can hope to check lawlessness. Lynching-as we noted in chapter XXV-have been the product of inadequate legislation and judicial procedure ”

“ Conceding that lawlessness is not a novel phenomenon, is not the present time characterized by an exceptional revolt against the authority of law? The statistics of our criminal courts show in recent years an unprecedented growth in crimes. ”

“ Let us assume that such people as really advocate lawlessness and disorder should be carefully watched and checked if they promise to be a cause of violence and destruction. But is it not possible to distinguish between them and those who question and even arraign with some degree of heat the standardized unfairness and maladjustments of our times? ”

“ But it would be wrong to make concessions to this dangerous weakness. * * Among us a spirit of lawlessness pervades the community which, if not repressed, threatens the dissolution of our present forms of society. ”

“ Where the whole always gives point to the negation of any of its parts, where the law always sanctions some breaking of any law, to think of the whole in terms of its parts may be human, but it is of the human which is prone to err. Those who would still insist upon seeing only routine in law, and upon judging lawlessness as only relative to such seeing, might do well, rising above their ordinary views, to remember with some real appreciation that once upon a time the law-breakers and the reformer were very closely associated ”

“ The spirit of graft and of lawlessness is the American spirit. ”

“ And yet some go right on committing the greatest crime against these men, by robbing them of their reason which God intended them to enjoy as their birthright.
Which is the greater crime, the whipping post and the lash with all their attendant horrors and misery, or the iron rule that crushes out all hope in the name of discipline? I believe in law and order, and that men must be in subjection to rules and regulations. I always urge upon them implicit obedience and subjection to the rules of the prison. ”

“ The weak should die, the strong alone prevail And Might rule over Right.’ This is the law, Or rather as it is administered. And how can it be ever otherwise, Until to Earth we strike the selfish creed, Which prating loud a few great Moral Truths, Forthwith defies them, and sets up a reign Of Superstition and of Mummery? Then, when men like myself would strike it down And change those civil laws which owe their birth To priestcraft and religious tyranny, 67 Who in the past were Sires of many sins, They are cast into prison instantly And doomed therein to waste Life’s precious days. ”

“ Go down on your knees, you men of the people, my brothers, my children; pray, implore, require that justice be done and anger repressed. It is your duty, it is your right, and to your own interest; for it is you who are insulted and threatened when laws are violated. ”

“ There, where in all the relations and concerns of life, he is legally treated as if he had nothing to do with the laws of reason, the light of immortality, or the exercise of will! Is the spirit of the Lord there, where liberty is decried and denounced, mocked at and spit upon, betrayed and crucified! ”

“ As ye ought to look on my example, so especially ponder that word and rule of practice and behaviour that I have left behind me, and given out as the lawgiver of the redeemed. Have I redeemed you, and should not I be the redeemed and ransomed one's king? Is there any society in the world wants a law, order, and government? Neither must ye who are delivered from bondage, enfranchised and made free indeed. ”

“ I have been mistaken, but, because I have been mistaken, will that God deny liberty to a people and yet save many who are much worse criminals than I am? What is my mistake compared to the crimes of our rulers? ”

“ For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all. For he that said, "Do not commit adultery," said also, "Do not kill." Now if thou dost not commit adultery, but killest, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as men that are to be judged by a law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to him that hath shewed no mercy; mercy glorieth against judgment.
Go to now, ye rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. ”

“ That part of the moral constitution, which exists in some degree in us all, which leads us to feel pain at the sight of injustice, and to desire retribution for cruelty and crime, seemed in him to have become an absorbing sentiment, as if he had been chosen by some higher power as the instrument of doom. ”

“ Can the efforts of a slave for the recovery of his liberty, be denominated vicious or criminal? From the moment you violate the laws of nature, in regard to them, why should not they shake them off in their relative duties to you? ”

“ Who would dare or by what reason would any one be held bound to dare to submit to the judgment of such a consistory—namely, to place oneself in the bosom of enemies and to offer oneself voluntarily to a death from violent injury and not by formal justice? That, indeed, is to be feared from the side of the law; that is to be evaded as a matter of morals; that human sense and reason flee from; that nature abhors. ”

“ The spirit that would have chosen danger in preference to crime,—to perish with justice rather than live with dishonor,—to dare and suffer whatever might betide, rather than sacrifice the rights of one human being,—could never have been subjugated by any mortal power. ”

“ But it is urged, that holding in bondage a human being, is wrong, and therefore, he ought to be set at liberty immediately. A person cannot do right, or repent of evil, too soon. As this applies to the slave, it may be false reasoning from just premises. ”

“ To such a one as you the law can be no guide. You should so live as not to come near the law,—or to have the law to come near to you. From all evil against which the law bars you, you should be barred, at an infinite distance, by honour, by conscience, and nobility. ”

“ When you went in to settle things for yourself, you were trying to make your own laws, and that ’s anarchy, I am constantly sending people to jail because they refuse to accept any law except that which they make for themselves. ”

“ You may say that it is your misfortune to be criminal; I answer that it is your crime to be unfortunate.
“I do not hesitate therefore to sentence you to imprisonment, p. 15with hard labour, for the rest of your miserable existence. During that period I would earnestly entreat you to repent of these wrongs you have done already, and to entirely reform the constitution of your whole body. I entertain but little hope that you will pay attention to my advice; you are already far too abandoned. ”

“ As the methods of dealing with criminals improve so the word LIBERTY is being substituted for the word LIFE. The sin on the man's soul may be left to God; all that men has to deal with is his anti-social attitude. ”

“ They could dodge under the fences of the law and climb the barbed wire of morality with equal impunity, and the utmost rigor of punishment had little terror for those whose hardships could scarcely be artificially worsened. ”

“ He touched upon delicate ground, asserting that every action is based less on liberty than on compulsion; that our acts are governed by natural laws, and not by theological opinions; and that punishment may act as a corrective of perverted human nature, but is chiefly the outflow of the desire of society to avenge wrongs inflicted upon it. ”

“ It is so manifest, that strict rules are required, just exactly in proportion to our inability or want of will to rule ourselves; it is so very plain, that, with regard to those crimes which we are under no temptation to commit, we feel exactly as if there were no law. Which of us ever thinks, as a matter of personal concern, of the law which sentences to death murderers, or housebreakers, or those who maliciously set fire to their neighbours' property? Do we not feel that, as far as our own conduct is concerned, it would be exactly the same thing if no such law were in existence? ”

“ But, if that, which is only submission to necessity, should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow. ”

“ Much of the individual viciousness, which society is required to punish, springs directly from the unjust and injurious conditions of life, which society itself has created. It is the perception of this fact that disturbs the conscience, puzzles the will, and palsies the arm of the modern law-giver and executor of justice. ”

“ “When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa. ”

“ But if you mean that which is law in the proper sense, then it is this which is by nature “king of all things;” although there are some individuals who, having like robbers abandoned the law, deny its validity, and live lives of violence and injustice. ”

“ “Where there’s law there’s injustice,” put in the little man. ”

“ By this principle our minds become free, active, and vigorous; by this alone we are inspired with that virtue which knows no fear, so different from that pliant prudence, worthy of those only who can bear a precarious existence. Attempts, therefore, against the life and liberty of a citizen, are crimes of the highest nature. ”

“ But nowadays everybody appears to be doing about what he can manage without getting arrested. Since they've put the ban on liberty and the pursuit of pleasure, we've most of us become sort of semioutlaws. ”

“ HE who disturbs the public tranquillity, who does not obey the laws, who violates the conditions on which men mutually support and defend each other, ought to be excluded from society, that is, banished. ”

“ The revolt against law naturally leads, except in those who are controlled by a real passion for humanity, to a relaxation of all the usually accepted moral rules, and to a bitter spirit of retaliatory cruelty out of which good can hardly come. ”

“ The rigour of discipline, and the habits of obedience, by which their force is kept directed to its proper objects, lead them naturally enough to conceive, that whatever they have the power, they have also the right to do. Actual disobedience being almost the only crime for which they are accustomed to expect punishment, they learn to consider it as the only measure of right and wrong ”

“ Suppose, then, that a man, abusing his freedom, disobeys the Divine commandments, which are the laws of heavenly order, and falls into sin. By repeated acts of disobedience, he perverts his nature and his tastes, forms evil habits, and sinks into a low and miserable state. ”

“ If you are a ruler or an official, make only an attempt to cease polite lying, cease to take part in violences and executions; if you are a priest, desist from deceiving; if a soldier, cease killing; if a land-owner or manufacturer, cease defending your property by roguery and violence; and forthwith you will lose the position which, as you say, is forced upon you and seems to you burdensome.
It cannot be that a man should be placed against his will in a position contrary to conscience. ”

“ And if we do; then our affection or respect for the law is entirely one-sided and impure. And the people who make laws and devise punishments upon those unequal premises are not at all likely to make their laws just, or their forms of punishment wise. ”

“ What wonder then if the community in general treat this monstrous crime as a matter of jest, and that men give way to the temptations of a violent appetite, when the indulgence of it is protected by law and countenanced by custom? ”

“ When punishment and imposition are used at the mere caprice of some low down scoundrel, instead of discretionary treatment, at the behest of a man of sense, reason and upright principle, the effect has ever been, and will ever be, to develop the worst traits inherent in the nature of the individual whom the laws have already pronounced unsafe, and when released, the consequences of that development, are going to fall on some innocent and unoffending member of the law-abiding class. ”

“ The people consider this law, however just or necessary, as an act of the most tyrannical cruelty, which ought to be opposed with the utmost steadiness and vigour, as an insupportable hardship from which they ought at any rate to set themselves free. ”