C. Edwards Lester, Life and public services of Charles Sumner: Born Jan. 6, 1811. Died March 11, 1874.

[160] With modesty and yet with firmness let me add, sir, it offends against the Divine Law. No such enactment can be entitled to support. As the throne of God is above every earthly throne, so are his laws and statutes above all the laws and statutes of man. To question these, is to question God himself. But to assume that human laws are beyond question, is to claim for their fallible authors infallibility. To assume that they are always in conformity with the laws of God, is presumptuously and impiously to exalt man to an equality with God. Clearly human laws are not always in such conformity; nor can they ever be beyond question from each individual. Where the conflict is open, as if Congress should command the perpetration of murder, the office of conscience as final arbiter is undisputed. But in every conflict the same Queenly office is hers. By no earthly power can she be dethroned. Each person, after anxious examination, without haste, without passion, solemnly for himself must decide this great controversy. Any other rule attributes infallibility to human laws, places them beyond question, and degrades all men to an unthinking passive obedience.

According to St. Augustine, an unjust law does not appear to be a law; lex esse non videtur quae justa non fuerit; and the great fathers of the Church, while adopting these words, declare openly that unjust laws are not binding. Sometimes they are called ‘abuses,’ and not laws; sometimes ‘violences,’ and not laws. And here again the conscience of each person is the final arbiter. But this lofty principle is not confined to the Church. A master of philosophy in early Europe, a name of intellectual renown, the eloquent Abelard, in Latin verses addressed to his son, has clearly expressed the universal injunction:

Jussa potestatis terrenae discutienda
Coelestis tibi mox perficienda scias.
Siquis divinis jubeat contraria jussis
Te contra Dominum pactio nulla trahat.

The mandates of an earthly power are to be discussed; those of Heaven must at once be performed; nor can any agreement constrain us against God. Such is the rule of morals. Such, also, by the lips of judges and sages, has been the proud declaration of the English law, whence our own is derived. In this conviction patriots have fearlessly braved unjust commands, and martyrs have died.

And now, sir, the rule is commended to us. The good citizen, as he thinks of the shivering fugitive,—guilty of no crime,—pursued,—hunted