ote Scripture or search for
arguments to prove it sinful to restore a fugitive slave, if he believed
slaveholding to be lawful in the sight of God. This being the case, we
feel satisfied that the mass of people at the North, whose conscience
and action are ultimately determined by the teachings of the Bible, will
soon settle down into the conviction that the law in question is not in
conflict with the law of God.

But suppose the reverse to be the fact; suppose it clearly made out that
the law passed by Congress in reference to fugitive slaves is contrary
to the Constitution or to the law of God, what is to be done? What is
the duty of the people under such circumstances? The answers given to
this question are very different, and some of them so portentous that
the public mind has been aroused and directed to the consideration of
the nature of civil government and of the grounds and limits of the
obedience due to the laws of the land. As this is a subject not merely
of general interest at this time, but of permanent importance, we
purpose to devote to its discussion the few following pages.

Our design is to state in few words in what sense government is a divine
institution, and to draw from that doctrine the principles which must
determine the nature and limits of the obedience which is due the laws
of the land.

That the Bible, when it asserts that all power is of God, or the powers
that be are ordained of God, does not teach that any one form of civil
government has been divinely appointed as universally obligatory, is
plain because the Scriptures contain no such prescription. There are no
directions given as to the form which civil governments shall assume.
All the divine commands on this subject, are as applicable under one
form as another. The direction is general; obey the powers that be. The
propsition is unlimited; all power is of God; i. e., government,
whatever its form, is of God. He has ordained it. The most pointed
scriptural injunctions on this subject were given during the usurped or
tyrannical reign of military despots. It is plain that the sacred
writers did not, in such passages, mean to teach that a military
despotism was the form of government which God had ordained as of
perpetual and universal obligation. As the Bible enjoins no one form, so
the people of God in all ages, under the guidance of his Spirit, have
lived with a good conscience, under all the diversities of organization
of which hum