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agreement; much more, that they could transmit to their posterity of this day an obligation, more binding than "the law of God" to keep such a compact, this does confound me. And that he should intimate, that the glory of our Republic, or its real welfare, or its preservation even, can be promoted by our obedience to such a law,—this I confess fills me with astonishment. I cannot account for it. I know not how to trace this moral obscuration to any angel of wisdom or love, that has veiled his sight. Let him, and those other Doctors of Divinity who have come forward, in this hour of our country's trial, to confound judgment, to blunt the public sense of right, to sear the public conscience, and harden the hearts of the people,—let them I say, explain and justify themselves, as best they can to God and to a near posterity. I can think of no adequate apology for ministers of the Gospel, who have so put darkness for light. I must condemn utterly their doctrine, that we ought sometimes, even now, to obey man rather than God; or the doctrine, that God does sometimes, even now, command or sanction unrighteousness.
This is a doctrine, which would throw distrust over the moral government of the world, and lead men directly to Atheism, It is a doctrine, that would cast censure upon the noble army of martyrs, both political and religious, whose blood has been the seed of the highest improvements in church and state; it would condemn the prophets of the Old Testament, the Apostles of the New, and Jesus Christ himself. These all set at naught the commandments of Princes, Governors, Kings, because they required things, which were wrong, contrary to the will of God.
This doctrine of our High Priests, that the enactments of those in power over us, until repealed, have the sanction of Almighty God, however much they may infringe upon the rights of man, and ought to be obeyed,—this doctrine now broached by some of the distinguished statesmen of our country, and enforced by some of our most eminent divines, contradicts not only "the Declaration of Independence," but the fundamental principles of human legislation, and of civil government, as laid down by those who arc acknowledged to be the masters of this subject.
Lord Coke declares that "the common law doth control Acts of Parliament, and adjudge them void, when they are against common right and reason."
Sir William Blackstone, laid down the same principle even
