Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/187

 GCITEAU'S CASE. 176 �as their practical duties are concerned. When they have the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, they are bound to do it. Opinions, properly so called, — i. e., beliefs resulting from reasoning, reflection, or examination of evidence, — aliord no protection against the penal consequences of crime. A man may believe a course of action to be right, and the law, which f orbids it, to be wrong. Never- theless, he must obey the law, notwithstanding bis convictions. And nothing can save him from the consequences of its violation, except the fact that be is so crazed by disease as to be unable to comprehend the necessity of obedience to it. �The Mormon prophets profess to be inspired, and to believe in the duty of plural marriages, although it was forbidden by a law of the United States. One of the sect violated the law, and was indieted for it. The judge who tried him instructed the jury — �"That if the defeiidant, under the influence of a religiouf^ belief that it was right, — under an inspiration, if you please, that it waa right, — deliberately married a second time, having a first wife living, the want of consdousness of evil intent, the want of understanding that he was committing a crime, did not excuse him." �And the supreme court of the United States, to which the case went, under the title of Reynolds v. U. S. 98 U. S. 145, in approving this ruling, said : �" Laws are made for the govemment of actions, and while they cannot Inter- fere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Sup- pose one helieved that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil govemment under Which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? Or, if a wife re- ligiously believed it was her duty to burn herself upon the f uneral pile of her dead husband, would it be beyond the power of the civil govemment to pre- vent her carrying her belief into practice? �" So, here, as a law of the organization of society, under the exclusive domin- ion of the United States, it is provided that plural marriages shall not be allowed, can a man excuse his practice to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and, in effect, to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name, xmder such circumstances." �And so, in like manner, I say, a man my reason himself into a con- viction of the expediency and patriotie character of political assas- sination, but to allow him to find shelter from punishment behind that belief, as an insane delusion, would be simply monstrous. �Between one and two centuries ago there arose a school of moral- ��� �