of frauds in the collection and payment of the public revenue; -to prevent the introduction of pestilential diseases and the spreading of conflagrations. What compensation can the personal penalty or punishment of the delinquent be to the state for a sum of money withdrawn or purloined from the public treasury, either by smuggling or peculation? What compensation, what atonement can any penalty suffered by the offender,who by a violation of the laws on those subjects, has been the means of letting loose conflagration and pestilence to the destruction of the lives aud property, perhaps of thousands of his fellow men,-be either to the public or to the suffering individuals? The moral reason which the author gives for permitting in penal law the alternative, that one may either obey the law or clear his conscience by submitting to the penalty, is altogether inadequate." That otherwise the multitude of penal laws in a state would not only be looked upon as impolitic, but a very wicked thing, if every such law were a snare for the conscience of the subject." Was it ever thought that the multitude of moral rules in any state of society ought to be looked upon as a very wicked thing, or that they were a snare to men's consciences, and not rather a safe guide? However complicated the state of society, and however numerous the rules, their application is left to be discovered as the result of situation, circumstances, and relations; nor is it thought a task too difficult. In matters that become the subject of positive law the difficulty is much less; many actions are considered as good only when enjoined, or as evil when prohibited. Hence, the duty of the subject arises on the requisition of the law, and is clearly explained in the law itself. Not that the positive law creates, if I may use the expression, but induces the moral obligation, and that in perfect consistence with the definition given of municipal law. It is presupposed that in the existing situation, the actions which are to be the subject of the law, are such as public good-the general interest-requires should be enjoined or prohibited according to their nature and tendency. It is here with the public right, the same as in the case of an individual, who may, by his acquiescence, suffer others to reap advantage from the use of his rights or property. So the government may suffer the citizens or subjects, to do, or neglect to do things, which it may have become the public interest either to enjoin, or to prohibit; and from the nature of civil liberty the permission continues until a law be interposed by public authority. In the former case, if the individual interpose his rightful claim, for others to persist in, the use becomes a private wrong; in the latter, if government interpose a law, to persist in opposition to the law, becomes a public wrong, a moral no less that a civil wrong. The author, seemingly, to prepare the way for his doctrine, has supposed there are many matters in themselves indifferent and which are not commanded or prohibited by those superior laws, the primary laws of nature of which he had been speaking; here, he says, the inferior legislature has scope and opportunity to interpose and to make that action unlawful which before was not so. It may, perhaps be difficult to fix the precise meaning of the word indifferent as here intended. That there are things indifferent, in the sense that they are neither right or wrong, considered independent of the relation under which they exist, and that they take their moral quality from those relations is true; but it is equally true, that independent of those relations they can never be a proper subject of legislation. They become such from their relation to the public interest; and when from that relation, the public good requires the interposition of a law on any matter it is no longer a matter of indifference. For the legislature to interpose a law on a matter, if any such could be found, totally indifferent, would be an unnecessary and wanton restraint both of the civil and natural liberty of the subject. It is also true that when a necessary end is sought to be effected by a law proposed, several subjects may be presented, and it may appear to the legislature a matter of indifference, or rather, of serious deliberation which shall be preferred; but when the choice is made, that indifference is not transferred to the law to interrupt the moral, any more than the civil obligation. Nor does it affect the reality of the obligation that the choice has been made of a subject less proper than another to attain the end sought. We may here repeat what has been said, at least in substance. The laws of nature have ordained that men, brought together in society, shall seek to promote and secure their own happiness through civil institutions and laws, and thus concur in the end and design of the great Lawgiver, to promote the general utility, the happiness of mankind. But although the laws of nature have ordained civil institutions generally, yet they have not ordained any particular forms, or specific civil rules. These are left to the wisdom and discretion of each society; and though they make it the duty of all to endeavor after perfection, they do not make its attainment a condition of their approbation. It is sufficient to induce their moral obligation in each society, that its civil institutions and laws in some degree tend to promote the happiness of its members at least without impeding the happiness of others, and thus concur in the original design of promoting human happiness. Thus, in every view which can be taken of the subject, it is clearly proved, that all municipal laws, whether civil or criminal, that is, penal, which the public interest, the general happiness require, and which in their tendency promote that happiness, are, in addition to the obligation of the civil compact, of strict moral obligation, and are inforced by the general moral law, the law of nature. In fact, they are rules of that law discovered by the wisdom of man as applicable to the existing situation of the civil state. To erect crimes upon actions wholly indifferent to the interest of the society, if any such are to be found, to gratify the pride and caprice of one class of citizens by allowing to them what is forbidden to others; to inflict penalties to support a system of monopoly, or the mere purpose of revenue, is to confound every idea of right and wrong in a criminal code. Such laws are to be found in many states. Such, perhaps, are the English laws to which the author has referred, the game laws and some others; but if they discover this character, they do not as we have shewn come within the definition of municipal law, or the purview of his subject-it demands a different discussion. Harrassed with such laws, and unable to find any moral restraint, men learn to make a distinction between what is morally wrong and what is only partially so. Among a great variety of laws, some arbitrary and some not, their minds are wearied with the difficulties of discrim inating. They readily admit the author's doctrine, and refer the violation of the primary class of duties in society to the class of mala in se, the others to the class of mala prohibita. Probably, however, no two men in any community will be found to agree in the classification. Laws which violate the principles, or neglect the interest of the society for which they are made, will be resisted, or will be obeyed with reluctance.Obedience will sometimes be considered as a matter of prudence; never as a matter of conscience. Men would be in a deplorable situation, if the law of morals inforced obedience to every act of legislation. The laws when once enacted would be received with veneration. The facility of execution would supersede the necessity of repeated examination, and frequent recurrence to the principles of the government, and the rights, interests, and sentiments of the people, without which the best intention of the legislature can afford no sufficient security against the danger of tyrannical laws. CHAPTER V. THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. Principles of the Government as they affect the Moral Obligation of Laws. From the different nature or constitution of governments, their principles and the spirit of their laws will be different. Fear, supported by terror of punishments, or a superstitious veneration for the reigning family, or both, are the principles, that is, the great object of the laws and the sole motive of obedience, in a despotic government. Monarchy does not lose sight of the principle of fear, but blends with it, chiefly in regard to the order of nobility, the principle of honor, a sentiment merely personal and devoted to all the caprices of opinion. The principle of an aristocracy, as it relates to the people, differs little from that of despotism. Republican, or rather, popular and representative governments have for their principle, that is, the end of their institution and the motive of obedience, a sentimental attachment of the people to the community, its institutions, its laws and government. A mixed government partakes of all these principles, each of which predominates in proportion to the prevalence of one or other of its constituent parts. Where fear is the governing motive of every social action, all happiness in social intercourse, all social improvements are not neglected only, but opposed by the genius of the government. Blended with fear, however, honor that principle of all the most capricious, sometimes irradicates, but more frequently obscures the social horizon. Neither of them have any principal regard to the happiness of |