You cannot do what you like with your own
feet, for the law will punish you for trespassing on your neighbour's
ground without his leave. In short, you can only do with your own
what will not hurt your neighbour, in such matters as the law can
take care of. And more, in any great necessity the law may actually
hurt you for the good of the nation at large. The law may compel you
to sell your land, to your own injury, if it is wanted for a
railroad. The law may compel you, as it did fifty years ago, to
serve as a soldier in the militia, to your own injury, if there is a
fear of foreign invasion; so that the law is above each and all of
us. Our own wills are not our masters. No man is his own master.
The law is the master of each and all of us, and if we will not obey
it willingly, it can make us obey unwillingly.
Can make us? Ay, but ought it to make us? Is it right that the law
should over-ride our own free wills, and prevent our doing what we
like with our own?
It is right--absolutely right. St. Paul tells us what gives law this
authority: "There is no power but of God. The powers that be are
ordained of God." And he tells us also why this authority is given
to the law. "Rulers," he says, "are not a terror to good works, but
to evil.
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