fled from their homes, beyond the jurisdiction of Rome, to establish a new
city where these enactments could not reach them. Only when the laws are
thus enforced by the public conscience as something sacred, does society
become possible; and this sense of the divinity which hedges a code of
laws has been transmitted from ancient Rome into the civilization of
Europe.

Cicero, in his admirable treatise on the laws, which unfortunately we have
in an imperfect condition, devotes the whole of the first book to
establishing eternal justice as the basis of all jurisprudence. No better
text-book could have been found for the defence of what was called "the
higher law," in the great American antislavery struggle, than this work of
Cicero. "Let us establish," he says, "the principles of justice on that
supreme law which has existed from all ages before any legislative
enactments were written, or any political governments formed." "Among all
questions, there is none more important to understand than this, _that man
is born for justice_; and that law and equity have not been established by
opinion, but by nature." "It is an absurd extravagance in some
philosophers to assert that all things are necessarily just which are
established by the laws and institutions of nations." "Justice does not
consist in submission to written laws." "If the will of the people, the
decrees of the senate, the decisions of magistrates, were sufficient to
establish rights, then it might become right to rob, to commit adultery,
to forge wills, if this was sanctioned by the votes or decrees of the
majority." "The sum of all is, that what is right should be sought for its
own sake, because it is right, and not because it is enacted."

Law appears from the very beginnings of the Roman state. The oldest
traditions make Romulus, Numa, and Servius to be legislators. From that
time, after the expulsion of the Tarquins, Rome was governed by laws. Even
the despotism of the Caesars did not interfere with the general
administration of the laws in civil affairs; for the one-man power, though
it may corrupt and degrade a state, does not immediately and directly
affect many persons in their private lives. Law continued to rule in
common affairs, and this legacy of a society organized by law was the gift
of Rome to modern Europe. How great a blessing it has been may be seen by
comparing the worst Christian government with the best of the despotic
governments of Asia. Mo