ponsibility. Let any man test this point by an
appeal to his own consciousness. Let him suppose the President of the
United States to order him to turn Romanist or Pagan; or Congress to
pass a bill requiring him to blaspheme God; or a military superior to
command him to commit treason or murder--does not his conscience tell
him he would on the instant refuse? Would he, or could he wait until the
constitutionality of such requisitions had been submitted to the courts?
or if the courts should decide against him, would that at all alter the
case? Men must be strangely oblivious of the relation of the soul to
God, the instinctive sense which we possess of our allegiance to him,
and of the self-evidencing power with which his voice reaches the reason
and the conscience, to question the necessity which every man is under
to decide all questions touching his duty to God for himself.

It may indeed be thought that this doctrine is subversive of the
authority of government. A moment's reflection is sufficient to dispel
this apprehension. The power of laws rests on two foundations, fear and
conscience. Both are left by this doctrine in their integrity. The
former, because the man refuses obedience at his peril. His private
conviction that the law is unconstitutional or immoral does not abrogate
it, or impede its operation. If arraigned for its violation, he may
plead in his justification his objections to the authority of the law.
If these objections are found valid by the competent authorities, he is
acquitted; if otherwise, he suffers the penalty. What more can the state
ask? All the power the state, as such, can give its laws, lies in their
penalty. A single decision by the ultimate authority in favor of a law,
is a revelation to the whole body of the people that it can not be
violated with impunity. The sword of justice hangs over every
transgressor. The motive of fear in securing obedience, is therefore, as
operative under this view of the subject, as it can be under any other.
What, however, is of far more consequence, the power of conscience is
left in full force. Obedience to the law is a religious duty, enjoined
by the word of God and enforced by conscience. If, in any case, it be
withheld, it is under a sense of responsibility to God; and under the
conviction that if this conscientious objection be feigned, it
aggravates the guilt of disobedience as a sin against God an hundred
fold; and if it be mistaken, it affords no