Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/74

70 bad establishments are made to work well, and serve the purpose of human life; because the man puts out the evil of the institution, constitution, or statute, and puts his own righteousness in its place. There was once a judge in New England who sometimes had to administer bad laws. In these cases he told the jury, “Such is the law, common or enacted; such are the precedents; such the opinions of Judge This and Judge That; but justice demands another thing. I am bound by my oath as judge to expound to you the law as it is: you are bound by oath as jurors to do justice under it; that is your official business here to-day.” Such a man works well with poor tools; with good ones he would work much better. By the action of such men, aided by public opinion, which they now follow and now direct, without any change of legislation, there is a continual progress of justice in the establishments of a nation. Bad statutes are dropped or corrected; constitutions silently ameliorated; all institutions made better. Thus wicked laws become obsolete. There is a law in England compelling all men to attend church. Nobody enforces it.

Put a bad man to administer the establishments, one who does not aim at the purpose of society, nor feel bound to keep the higher law of God, the best institutions, constitutions, statutes, become ineffectual, because the man puts out the good thereof, and puts in his own evil. The best establishments will be perverted to the worst of purposes. Rome had all the machinery of a commonwealth; with Cæsar at the head it became a despotism. In 1798 France had the establishments of a republic; with Napoleon for first consul you know what it became: it soon was made an empire, and the constitution was trodden under foot. In 1851 France has the institutions of a democracy; with Louis Napoleon as chief you see what is the worth of the provisions for public justice. What was the constitution of England good for under the thumb of Charles I. and James II.? What was the value of the common law, of the trial by jury, of Magna Charta, “such a fellow as will have no sovereign,” with a George Jeffreys for judge, a James II. for king, and such juries as corrupt sheriffs brought together? They were only a mockery. What were the charters of New England