ng,
have repealed it. The statute stays, to be used by mischievous people
and by those who believe in the particular law.

Often the unthinking lay hold of a catch-word or a pet phrase and repeat
and write it, as if it were the last word in social science and
philosophy. General Grant, when president, stumbled on such a silly
combination of words, and surface-thinkers have been repeating it ever
since, simply because it sounds wise and pat. Grant once said that, "The
way to repeal a bad law is to enforce it." Grant was not a statesman nor
a philosopher. He was a soldier. He probably heard some one use this
phrase, and it sounded good to him. Out of that has grown the further
statement which courts and prosecutors have used to excuse themselves
for the cruelty of enforcing a law that does violence to the feelings of
the people. This statement is to the effect that so long as the law is
on the books, it is the duty of officers to enforce it. The smallest
investigation of the philosophy of law shows how silly and reactionary
such statements are.

One thing should be remembered. Laws really come from the habits,
customs and feelings of the people, as interpreted or understood by
legislative bodies. When these habits and customs are old enough they
become the folk-ways of the people. Legislatures and courts only write
them down. When the folk-ways change the laws change, even though no
legislature or judge has recorded their repeal.

Since Professor Sumner of Yale University wrote his important book,
"_Folkways_," there is no excuse for any student not knowing that this
statement is true. As a matter of fact, no court ever enforced all the
written laws, or ever would, or ever could. Only a part of the discarded
criminal law is ever repealed by other laws. The rest dies from neglect
and lack of use. It is like the rudimentary parts of the human anatomy.
Man's body is filled with rudimentary muscles and nerves that, in the
past, served a purpose. These were never removed by operations, but died
from disuse. Every criminal code is filled with obsolete laws, some of
them entirely dead, others in the course of dissolution. They cannot be
repealed by statute so long as an active minority insists that they
remain on the books. When the great mass no longer wants them, it is
useless to take the trouble to repeal them. The fugitive slave law was
never believed in and never obeyed, and it was openly violated and
defied by the great